I’d bet good money I’ve told this true aggie story once before in my column, but it had to be around 35 years ago — more than enuf time for it to be funny again to a new generation of farm and ranch folks. It’s a true story about an ugly aggie spectacle. So, here it goes:
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A prominent southeast Kansas rancher had a huge old Limousin bull that had outlived its usefulness and needed to go to market.
This wuz back in the day that M & M Packing Company, Inc. wuz still a livestock slaughter and processing enterprise on the east side of Iola, Kan., right along U.S. Highway 54. As I recall, it wuz a small meat packing company that specialized in hot dogs, bologna and other meats. At any rate, it wuz a good local market for cull cows and bulls.
The rancher, who lived south of Gridley, Kan., got the old bull loaded in a stock trailer early in the morning and uneventfully drove to M&M. He had no inkling, and was blissfully unaware, about how his day wuz about to be upturned in a spectacular way.
When he arrived at M&M, he wuz directed to the unloading dock and an employee directed him when to stop his trailer in front of the entry door. Well, as it turned out, he stopped the trailer a few inches too far away. So, when the rancher opened the trailer door to unload the highly agitated one-ton old bull, it crashed into the tailgate with the unprepared rancher on the other side of the gate.
Crash! Smash! The bull banged the metal tailgate into the poor rancher’s noggin, bloodying his head in the process of making a thunderous escape into the suburban wilds of eastern Iola.
Now, the rancher faced a dilemma with no good options for a satisfactory outcome. First, he needed to staunch the flow of blood from his aching noggin, so he tied his bandanna around his forehead.
Second, for sure, the old bull couldn’t be herded back into the M&M unloading door, since it wuz already a block away and headed east at breakneck speed, tail in the air and slinging manure in every direction. The rancher wuz equipped with only a farm truck.
Third, the concerned folks at M&M reported the bull get-away to local police officials. When the responding officer arrived, he loaded the now-temporarily-bandaged rancher into his police vehicle and away they went looking for the rampant bull. Well, in a few minutes they found the bull in the backyards of some homes about a mile east of Iola. But, by then, the red-hot and panting bull had managed to rampage through fences, gardens and clotheslines. Mr. Bull wuz not a happy camper. In fact, he wuz “bulligerent” and ready to take on all comers.
The rancher and the police officer quickly came to a decision about what to do next. In order to limit further property damage and avert possible injury to life and limb, the bull needed to be shot on the spot.
At this point in the story, I’m unsure whether the rancher or the policeman shot the bull, but I do recall that the first bullet bounced off the bull’s head and only stunned it to its knees. A second shot put the “bulligerant” critter down for good.
But, the ugly spectacle only got worse from there. The rancher immediately bled the downed bull in hopes of salvaging a portion of its value. Then, somehow the recovery crew commandeered the use of a local John Deere tractor with a front-end loader. With a log chain around one of the massive bull’s legs, they hoisted his bloody carcass into the air. They barely managed to get the bull airborne. Plus, the tractor wuz unsteady with a ton of bull swinging from the loader.
But, the rancher finally managed to get back on Highway 54 and head slowly and carefully back west to M&M — with a lights-a-flickering police escort to protect the bumper-to-bumper traffic going both ways.
I ask readers to mentally process how the scene looked to passersby. A rancher with a bloody kerchief around his head wuz driving a tractor down the shoulder of a major highway, with a police escort, with a blood-dripping, manure-laden one-ton bull hoisted high into the air, with traffic slowed to a crawl both ways. Not a pretty mental home video, but a funny one if you’re an aggie.
In due time, the caravan arrived back at M&M. The company went ahead and processed the bull’s carcass into heaven-only-knows what kind of beef products. The rancher wuz paid some sort of salvage value. And, an Ugly Aggie Spectacle came to and end leaving behind only a story for history to process — and for us to smile about.
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Recently, time brought a sad conclusion to an otherwise happy portion of my life. I am now the only man left standing from what I call the Four Musketeers. While I lived in Chase County, I became close friends with three other fellows. While diverse in our backgrounds, we were all aggies in one way or another and got along well.
I gave my friends the column names of Lon G. Horner, Mocepheus, and Saul M. Reader. We played cards together frequently. We hunted together. We fished together. We kibitzed with each other constantly. Now, with the sad passing of Saul last week, I’m the only remaining Musketeer. For sure, we had other folks in our circle of friends who joined us occasionally, but the four of us were close.
Saul M. Reader wuz also a lay minister in the Lutheran Church. He wuz a happy-go-lucky guy, always smiling, but devoutly connected to his church, consistently pious in his ways, and never judgmental. I greatly admired those traits about Saul.
Alzheimer’s disease deprived Saul of a normal aging process these last few years. But, thankfully, we Four Musketeers had many happy years of memory-making. Thinking of Saul will always bring back happy times and happy memories. RIP, my friend.
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Words of wisdom for the week: “Take comfort knowing no archaeologist has ever discovered a prehistoric cave painting of a salad.” Have a good ‘un.
