The Parable of the Cow Patties
A parable, if you check your Funk & Wagnalls, is "a short narrative making a moral or religious point by comparison with natural or homely things. See allegory."
My father was brought up on a farm. It's gone now, the 19th century house, the barn, the pasture, everything, but I remember it well, in its latter days. The barn stood back at a distance from the house, the space between contained a few cow droppings and a number of hens scratching out a living, you might say. As a boy, I would chase the hens when no-one was looking and the rooster wasn't near. Hens are not good fliers but, in an emergency they could make it to the roof of the coop if not the barn.
As a boy, my father told me, he had an obsession. He wanted to make a cow patty stick under the eave of the barn. Not an easy thing to do. If the patty was old and dry, it would not stick. If it was too fresh, it would either run between the fingers or splatter when it hit the eave. It had to be in between. It had to be just right. But even if the consistency was perfect, skill was required to judge the weight, throw it up at the right angle and speed. Wrist action was important.
It took him a long time to perfect the art.
He told me all this a few days before I left home to set out on my journey into the world. There is something Biblical about a father's advice to a departing son. I didn't forget it. I gathered from all this that if you knew how to throw the bull, you could go a long way. But mind you, it had to be the right kind and you had to have the knack of throwing it (a few politicians come to mind) or it would come back in your face.
My father, like Jesus, spoke in parables.
My father was brought up on a farm. It's gone now, the 19th century house, the barn, the pasture, everything, but I remember it well, in its latter days. The barn stood back at a distance from the house, the space between contained a few cow droppings and a number of hens scratching out a living, you might say. As a boy, I would chase the hens when no-one was looking and the rooster wasn't near. Hens are not good fliers but, in an emergency they could make it to the roof of the coop if not the barn.
As a boy, my father told me, he had an obsession. He wanted to make a cow patty stick under the eave of the barn. Not an easy thing to do. If the patty was old and dry, it would not stick. If it was too fresh, it would either run between the fingers or splatter when it hit the eave. It had to be in between. It had to be just right. But even if the consistency was perfect, skill was required to judge the weight, throw it up at the right angle and speed. Wrist action was important.
It took him a long time to perfect the art.
He told me all this a few days before I left home to set out on my journey into the world. There is something Biblical about a father's advice to a departing son. I didn't forget it. I gathered from all this that if you knew how to throw the bull, you could go a long way. But mind you, it had to be the right kind and you had to have the knack of throwing it (a few politicians come to mind) or it would come back in your face.
My father, like Jesus, spoke in parables.
posted by puzzled @ 9:29 AM
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