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What Cattle Do At Night (or Until the Cows Come Home)

April 1, 2021 By admin

cattle with hornsAnother in a continuing series of articles about what exactly animals and marine life are up to, that you always wanted to know.

We’ve all seen it. About an hour before sunset the cows come home. If we’re talking milk cows, they head for the barn because there’s food there and a place to get out of the wind. But what about cattle on open grazing land? Where are they heading? How do they spend their nights?

First of all, we’ve all heard the expression “herd mentality” and when it comes to cattle, there are always some dominant animals that decide where and when the herd moves. They are after all prey animals, so there’s safety in numbers. So after a hard day of grazing, cattle will seek out some lowland out of the wind and elements and find bedground for the night. You would be surprised at how much body heat an 1,800 pound cow can generate and they do have a whole lot of insulation, so I would not get too hung on whether or not they are cold. Ask a rancher in North Dakota how low the temperature has to get before a cow freezes.

There’s usually a lot of gossip about who saw what (Did you see that rusty old pick-up truck go by?), how much forage everyone had, and some of the goofy things the calves were up to that day. There is a lot of talk about the quality of the forage, so much like humans, cattle will drone on and on about where the best forage was, or complaining about the scarcity, or how long it took to chew cud.

Cattle are very social, so it’s not unusual for some of the better storytellers to break out a story that’s been handed down for generations for the listening pleasure of the rest of the herd. On some rare occasions, the herd will come across some Jimson weed and on those nights the cattle have a riproaring time getting high as kites (perhaps not the best comparison when you’re talking about an 1,800 pound animal) and having some really wicked hallucinations. If you’re wondering what kind of hallucination a cow might have, one of the most common ones is that a cow will think that the ear tag is some kind of radio controller that’s following every move the cow makes. Creepy yes, but not out of the realm of possibility.

So the next time you see cattle making their move around sunset, you’ll have a pretty good idea that the party is about to get started.

Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle. You can also visit his author page here.

Filed Under: FICTION

Bridgeport

April 1, 2021 By admin

bright light flashBridgeport Connecticut does not have the right side of the tracks—both sides are the wrong ones. South of the tracks is the Connecticut Turnpike, storage areas both outdoors and a cinderblock building with a row of stores which houses the Lucky the Clown shop where we got our orange wigs, spring-loaded books with a pop-up penis’, and next to that is the gefilte fish wholesaler, He’ll sell retail also but, the owner, Flash Horowitz, doesn’t get much local business. He’s got two refrigerated trucks, Flashes Fish, with a water scene and two baited hooks painted on one side and a man in cement shoes with his fedora floating above him on the other.

The north end of the tracks has the Marina Village projects with broken glass filled parking lots and another cinderblock building housing a liquor store, Liquors in a Flash “the city’s largest selection of pints and half pints” and it’s owned by the gefilte fish guy’s father—also called Flash.

There a cigarette store that sells girly mags, makes book, and posts the pink sheets with the Daily Number in the window as soon as they’re delivered—usually around 3 PM after the third race for the day is run. At the end of the building is Dr. Horwitz, the Tooth Doctor—Flash’s brother who’s semi-retired. There are two empty stores that are being held for Flash’s son, Sparky, for when he graduates from the University of Bridgeport’s law school which may be a while depending on how his trial for arson goes. The sign had been made as a bar mitzvah present from Zeyde Flash. It reads, Horowitz, Horowitz, & Horowitz attorney at law. It’s made from red oak and the letters, filigree, and flames are real gold flake.

Rumor has it that Sparky’s going to need a lawyer most of his life rather than be one.

Paul Beckman’s a Connecticut writer whose latest flash collection, Kiss Kiss (Truth Serum Press) was a finalist for the 2019/2020 Indie Book Awards. Some of his stories appeared in Spelk, Connotation Press, Anti-Heroin Chic, Necessary Fiction, Litro, Pank, Playboy, WINK, Jellyfish Review, and The Lost Balloon.

 

Filed Under: ESSAY

Less is More

April 1, 2021 By admin

hygge relaxation feet on warm radiatorMy granddaughter is talking to me on FaceTime. I’m so pleased that she calls and is willing to share with me. But sometimes it feels like she is still the one-year old baby handing grandma a soggy corner of her cookie that I can’t refuse and have to pretend to eat. See, she is upset over Covid isolation and the enforced solitary confinement she faces. ‘They,’ ‘somebody,’ ‘the government’ is depriving her of an essential and irreplaceable part of her young life. She’s missing out on graduation, prom, the final track meet and all the processing with her best friends about boys, over burgers.

I try to listen and absorb and acknowledge without offering advice. It’s hard. Because she hasn’t been constrained, yet. And well she shouldn’t be, after all. She’s just a young woman whose body hasn’t been hijacked by pregnancy for a year at a time. Can’t tell her that. She has to go through it herself. Maybe more than once.

And as she moans and whines, I remember the time my girlfriend Inga and I went to visit her Danish grandparents on their farm. We got stuck there in a blizzard. For three days. At first, I was frantic, felt trapped. Then her grandmother lit candles. Got out blankets and warm wool socks and hot cocoa and a big fire in the fireplace and we snuggled in. Her grandmother called all this hygge (hoo-guh). And I got the feeling that the word meant cozy, getting cozy. Like the way it feels so good to hunker down in a warm dry house in a pounding rain storm.

Or maybe like my Italian grandfather did one lazy summer day when he sprawled out on his postage stamp lawn, pants rolled to his knees, socks down to his shoes—his idea of sunbathing. He puffed on his Chesterfield cigarette, eyes closed but not sleeping. When I asked him what he was doing, he replied, ‘dolce far niente.’ It wasn’t until I took Italian in college that I figured out the words but I got the sense of it right then…to sweetly do nothing.

But how can I tell her all that. She would just say, “That’s easy for you to say…you’re old. What have you got to do that’s exciting anyway.” But she won’t because…well, because. And she has her whole life to learn that sometimes less is more.

Retired trainer, and writing instructor, Joe Novara and his wife live in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Writings include novels, short stories, a memoir and various poems, plays, anthologies and articles. Read more at https://freefloatingstories.wordpress.com/

Filed Under: ESSAY

Miss Information?

March 18, 2021 By admin

Or should that be misinformation? I never had any expectation that baby boomers were a monolithic demographic when it came to their political and social opinions, but sometimes it felt that way when the war was raging in Viet Nam and Selective Service (remember that?) was breathing down the necks of young boomers. We are all in this together, right? Well, maybe not.

Fast forward 52 years, and it’s become even more clear that if there ever was any uniformity to our outlook as children of the 60s, it’s gone now. The truth has gotten fuzzier and facts can be challenged by alternative facts, the latter phrase itself a puzzling and disturbing development.

All this time, even though we watched the same TV shows, listened to the same hit songs, and fixated on the popular movies of our era, it appears that are brains were interpreting these cultural touchstones in very divergent ways. Truthiness became a thing and thus it became okay, if not acceptable, to decode shared experiences as opposing ends of the political spectrum.

The alphabet soup of generations (Gen X, Gen Y/Millennials and Gen Z) have been for the most part shaped by a whole different set of cultural and political influences. Their outlook has been influenced by recessions, rapid technology innovation and rampant social media. Now they are tasked not only with translating the latest operating system updates for our computers, but also helping us separate truth from fiction. With baby boomers grandparents caught between Q Anon and the Onion, what’s a Gen X, Y or Z’er to do? They expected, even welcomed the chance to help boomer parents with technology, but how could they have predicted they would be required as well to debunk fake news. One generation believes if they see it in print it must be true and the other generation finds almost everything that makes its way to the internet to be suspect.

Since we can’t agree on which facts are really facts (i.e. truth), we can only hope that X, Y and Z will save us by confirming the real ABC’s.

Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle. You can also visit his author page here.

 

 

Filed Under: ESSAY

Going It Alone

March 18, 2021 By admin

Ecuador sceneryMy dad used to tell me about growing up in the 1930’s when you could invite a passing stranger into your home for a meal and a night’s sleep without any concerns for your family’s safety. This same dad tried to dissuade me from going to Ecuador, warning me that there are plenty of people in the world who might be looking to hurt or kill an American woman of a certain age traveling alone.

The fact is I’ve always been a bit of a loner. I could blame that on my nomadic early life as an army brat, always the new girl in school, never really sure of where I came from or where I belonged and forever the outsider. Or perhaps it’s the selfish streak that won’t allow me to waste precious time accommodating others or compromising my agenda. It could be that it was just the practical thing to do: I wanted to go to Ecuador, so I did it.

As a new retiree, I had done a lot of reading and learned that I would get a lot of geographical and cultural bang for my buck in Ecuador as there was an amazing amount of diversity in a limited area. Several distinct indigenous peoples, the influence of Spanish colonialism, the volcanic mountains, the jungle, the beaches, Quito’s urban sprawl, and perhaps the last “undiscovered” places on earth. And the wildlife. Holy Capybara, the wildlife!

Most compelling of all was the strange cultural duality of the place. It was at once rich and poor. Straightforward and complex. Rigid and freewheeling. From the very first day, I knew I had placed myself directly in the path of some unnamed yearning that had existed for me all my life.

I’m still not sure why I wanted to go to Ecuador but what I found there was a genuine welcome by a proud people eager to show me their country and their cultures. I found insight and enlightenment. Above all, I found personal freedom and the amazing sense of peace that comes from being “off the grid” if only for a couple of weeks.

Linda Caradine is a Portland Oregon based writer, traveler and animal lover.

Filed Under: ESSAY Tagged With: alone, baby boomer, Ecuador, woman

Trash Talk

March 18, 2021 By admin

In my third week at The Company I got a trash can for my office. This is no small accomplishment. The workplace adheres to the open-office philosophy, which apparently also stipulates that people do not generate trash at their desks. Unfortunately, the open-office gurus neglected to invent the peel-less banana.

Late at night on Friday, I was finishing up. Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse (this is Industry, after all.) I figured that I should empty my trash can lest everyone see (and smell) my banana peels on Monday morning. (Open offices have glass walls and doors that are left… open.) But where to dump the peels and other (unsanctioned but) accumulated trash? Gazing out in all directions through the glass walls of my open office, I could identify no trash receptacles anywhere. I loaded my work bag with provisions, making sure to pack a change of clothing and a bottle of water for the long trip, set my out-of-office message to “In search of trash bin – may have limited access to email”, and headed out into the unknown to dispose of my rapidly-ripening collection.

As I wandered the vast dark expanse of pristine desks and trash-free meeting-spaces with my overflowing trash can under my arm, I came across a young diligent worker hunched over her desk. The only light in the room coming from her computer screen. Next to her sat her office-mate (age 5?) happily eating a Pop Tart sandwich (five fingers pressed between two Pop Tarts). “Who are you?” cut in the protective mother.

“I’m Evan”, I answered, offering my hand.

“Do you work at The Company?” asked the mom, suspiciously, eying my luggage.

“Yes, I do”, I answered dutifully.

“What do you do?” asked the inquisitor.

“I’m a Vice President”, I beamed.

My inquisitor studied me. She studied my trash can. She considered its slightly aromatic yellow and black contents.

“I don’t believe you”, she retorted.

The little girl, feet dangling from her chair, was noncommittal.

She offered me a bite of her Pop Tart.

It was cherry.

Evan Morris is a professor of radiology and biomedical imaging at Yale. Last year he was a vice president at a biotech company.

 

 

Filed Under: ESSAY

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