Thermopylae on the Farm

Growing up on our family farm life seemed to always be full of adventure. Sometimes it was an adventure you planned as a high-stakes heist, like sneaking blueberries from Grandma’s prized bushes. Or sometimes it was an adventure as a chance of good fortune shining down on you, like coming across your cousin's secret fireworks stash. But sometimes the adventure was thrust upon you, willing or not.

On our farm we raised cattle and there were only a limited amount of jobs that would be entrusted to you when there were three more capable older brothers and, as a twelve year old, you had proven easily distractible. Everything around me could be turned into a distraction when my head was full of comic books and the accounts of history's greatest military battles. Swinging across the barn on a rope like you were Spider-Man, check. Rearranging hay bales to resemble the Alamo and fight off the imaginary attackers, check.

So, it came as no surprise that when they were passing out jobs one Saturday morning as we were rounding up cattle, my Uncle Jerry placed me in what I thought was an out-of-sight-out-of-mind assignment. I was away from the general action and told to stand between the backside of the barn and the grain silo and that if any cows made it around to “no matter what” don’t let any through that gap.

Guarding a 20 foot gap, to me, seemed like an uneventful way to spend part of my precious Saturday morning. The best I could hope for was to see some wasp nest under the eaves of the barn I could throw rocks at. Take that boredom, I would be like one of my favorite comic heroes, Hawkeye, and dispense justice to those evil wasps, just with rock shards instead of trick arrows.

It didn’t seem like anything had started so I took the opportunity to sneak off to fill my pockets with projectiles. On my way back my oldest brother Nicky saw me and shook his head and yelled at me to get back to where I was supposed to be. He was smiling and I wasn’t sure if it was because he knew I had some sort of shenanigans planned or he knew that they had effectively placed me somewhere to be out of the way and I was obviously unaware.

I took my assigned place back up and could hear Dad, Uncle Jerry, and my other brothers hollering and driving the cows into the big lot of the barn. I could also hear the cows answering back with what even my young age could tell was discontent. I didn’t know if the cows were upset about this change of scenery that was taking place for them or if there were some other cow related complaints they were upset about.

Oh well, I thought, whatever was going on with the cows wasn’t my problem. Until it was. I heard a frenzy of yells that soon was followed by the arrival of the first three cows to come around the corner of the barn. They came to a startled stop by my presence 20 feet away. I could hear Uncle Jerry’s voice echoing “no matter what” in my head.

The lead cow’s glare, yes, a cow can glare, showed murderous intent as she knew they only thing preventing her escape to greener pastures was the stick of a boy with bulging pockets of rocks. She took a few steps toward me and I began, to what must have seemed like rhythmic gyrating to the cow, to flail about yelling and throwing my hands wildly in the air. All three of the cows advanced a few feet more and I started a panicked clapping of my hands.

In that moment I recognized this unintended adventure that had been thrust upon me. The historical parallels all lined up: I was the Spartans, the rogue cows were the Persians, and the space between the barn and the silo were “The Hot Gates”. All that stood between the cows ravaging Greece was this Thermopylae of a gap I held my ground in.

We raised Beefmaster cattle so these were not puny little milk cows content to do as you told them, they had a will they sought to impose on the farm world. The odds were against me I knew, but everyone was counting on me to hold this space, to let none pass, to fight to the last man, or boy in my case.

Spurred by the arrival of more cows who had escaped, the army in front of me had swelled to about fifteen enemy and began to trudge my direction. “No matter what” was still ringing in my head. I knew yells and clapping wouldn’t be enough. I racked my brain, wondering what General Leonidas would do. I had no short sword to wield, but what I did have was two blue jean pockets full of shard rocks.

The cows had made up their collective minds and began to trudge my way. I dug deep and fast into my pocket with my left hand to hold my arsenal. My right hand began to pelt the attackers with well placed head shots. The cows in the front were stunned, how was this tall grass stalk of a boy sending pain their way from so far away. The potential stampede was broken up as the front rank of cows turned back into the herd in the confusion.

One pocket full gone, I pulled out the last handful and began to send projectiles into this new wave of cows. They too, in confusion, turned from this lone defender of the gap and back around the barn they ran. The last rock cleared my hand and I looked out through the dust cloud to see the cows had turned back. All but one.

I recognized her right away. The orange tag in her ear read 380 and never before had such an ill contented cow walked the face of the earth. I was out of rocks but I knew in my heart that wouldn’t have mattered. This was no timid cow to be put off by rocks, she was a cow's cow, in her food chain the cow was a level above human. She charged.

I clapped.

I jumped.

I yelled.

From around the barn behind her Uncle Jerry ran around yelling, “Nnnnoooo Maaatttteeeerrrr Whhhaaatttt!” At least that's what I think he was saying. Everything had gone in slow motion as 380 charged.

I held my ground. Arms waving, feet stomping, I held my ground. This brown beast, this force of bovine nature closed in. I will not move, No. Matter. What.

To this day, I have no idea if it was bravery or fear that rooted me to that spot, I saw her lower her head as she closed on me. The next thing I knew I was sailing through the air with my arms and legs akimbo. As she went around me she raised her head rapidly and her horns had caught me behind the knees and sent me up cartwheeling head over foot over head, and once again over foot.

She thundered past as my body jarred down with a bone crushing thud to the ground. The wind was knocked out of me as my Uncle Jerry came up to me with a smile playing across his face as he told me, “I thought you to not let anything through here no matter what.”

Nicky came over and gave me a hand up and told me I could go up the house and rest, but to not tell momma what had happened.

I hobbled up to the house but not for rest. I went in to search the World Book Encyclopedia to make sure I got the epitaph correct. With the information in hand I found a short piece of two by four wood and with my dad’s carpenter pencil I wrote the words.

I don’t think anyone who read that piece or wood I placed next to the barn in that fated gap understood the significance of the words. Upon it in my scrawl of pencil it read:

“Stranger! To Sparta say, her faithful band

Here lie in death; remembering her command”