Bulls and Laughter

 

Upon the untimely, early death of my father, we moved from Seattle to the tiny burg of Kilmichael, MS, population 300, on Saturday night. But when we first arrived, we stayed at our Uncle Doyle’s house out in Poplar Creek, MS, an even small community gifted with a small general store with a gas pump. We lay have well have been on another planet.

Behind Uncle Doyle’s house, there was a smelly ditch with a big plank over it leading to the barnyard. In the late afternoons, we were allowed to cross the ditch to feed the chickens a few ears of corn that we would carefully scrub off. While this was fun, we were amazed to learn where eggs came from, we were warned to watch out for the “old King snake” that lived in the corn crib, so we never went very far into the dark corn crib. I can still smell the musty odor of the corn and the barnyard.

But there was also a big bull that we were warned to stay far away from. Every evening the cows would come up for feeding and milking, and one of us was the lookout for the bull. As soon as he was spotted, way in the distance, we ran shrieking over the plank to the house. More than once, one of us fell into the stinky creek.

Soon we learned we had all kinds of relatives in the area, and a girl in my class was a distant relative. Soon I was invited to spend the night at her house out in the country. Well, they, too, had a mean ol bull. My older house, Glenda, would get in the beat-up old truck and go out to round the cows up with us in the back of the truck bumping out into the pasture. Soon the bull would be charging the truck while we shrieked in fear and laughter.

Looking back, through the lens of age, I now understand the treasure of extended family. I know they laughed at our naïveté and we laughed with them. I feel sorry for children who grow up in gated communities or concrete jungles far from their roots.

Susan Larson

San Antonio Tlayacpan, MX

October 31, 2022