Wire to Wire

Summer days were made for boys. Even with the chores on our small town farm, my older brother and I always found ways to have fun. Sometimes the fun had to be found in creative ways while getting our chores done. What our parents didn't know couldn't hurt them, but the same couldn't always be said about a couple of boys. Fun isn't always painless.

If you were to ask someone what the difference is between little children and teenage boys, you might get answers ranging from age to physical ability. You might even get some stuttering responses about intelligence, wondering if there is any. Intelligence in teenage boys can be confusing and difficult to prove.

When parents are asked if their teenage boys are smart, it isn't uncommon for them to pause - sometimes lengthily - before answering with a slow, "weeelll." "Tommy is a 'smart-alec,' but we're not sure if he's smart."

The difference between little children and teenage boys is that little children don't know what they don't know. Teenage boys don't believe they don't know. (You've probably heard the saying, "Hire a teenager while he still knows everything.") They also don't believe they can't do something. The emergency room at the hospital attracts this kind of male thinking.

Being the younger brother contributes to this kind of mental instability. Parents know this only too well. "I hope little Johnny doesn't grow up to a smart-alec like his older brother."

This can even cause contention in a marriage. "Well, dear, he's your son," Mom says with polite sarcasm. "Yes, dear, but you're the one that birthed them boys," Dad replies defensively. Then they silently look at each other with questioning eyes: "Dear God, what have we done?" The irony is that a loving Heavenly Father might silently answer their mental plea: "Well, you asked for children." (No, I don't understand love either.)

Yep, summer days were made for boys. Hard work and flies can't keep farm boys from finding ways to have fun. And the work usually gets done, even when it's supposed to be done.

One of the chores my brother and I had to do was scattering dried cow pies and setting the sprinkler in our neighbor's pasture that he let us use for our cows. This pasture was about a quarter acres in size, and it was our job to string a hose from the corral hydrant, under the fence into the pasture. Then we had to move the sprinkler from time-to-time to restore the growth.

When the sprinkler was in use, it was necessary to close the pasture to keep the cows from mucking up the soggy sod with their heavy hooves. The way we closed the pasture was to string two strands of electric wire across the gate. But I'm getting ahead of myself in the story. 

Do you have any idea how hot an dusty a corral is in the middle of the summer? Walking across a dry corral raises an acrid dust of finely mixed dirt and well pulverized manure.

A few things you should know about cow corrals. One is that they are hot an dusty when there has been no rain for awhile. Another is that they have their own aromatic essence that clings to you long after you have gone somewhere else, like into the house. "Don't you come in here smelling like that," Mom would scold me. What did she want me to do, strip down to my undies?

Another thing to know is that corrals are full of land mines - cow pies to the uninitiated. Cows drop them strategically in random places - land mines. It requires vigilance to avoid them and significant effort to clean one's shoes if you don't. (There is a reason farmers wear boots.)

In defense of cow pies, they are natural fertilizer, so they don't smell so wicked as stepping on a canine land mine. They also don't stick to your shoes like the super glue poop left by a dog.

You need to know what kind of critters you're likely to find in a cow corral. Obviously, you will find cows. We usually had five head of milking cows. One thing you might not know about cows is that they multiply, just like people and other animals. With this bit of information you can now guess that we also had a few calves to take care of.

I think I mentioned flies earlier. Yep, you probably didn't think of flies being one of the critters you find in a corral. In fact, they are the most numerous and pestiferous of all critters. You can't enter the corral without a fly and his brother greeting you.

Flies are very gregarious by nature. (Bet you didn't know I knew a big word.) They never go visiting alone. Have you ever wondered what flies think about, and how they decide who gets to greet a visitor? "Hey, Darrell, look who's coming into the corral," Larry says.

"Larry, it's him!" Darrell buzzes around excitedly.

"Yeah, we haven't had anything today to chase and annoy except these dirty cows."

"So, Darrell, what are we waiting for?"

Flies have no sense of social decency, and they absolutely can't take a hint to get lost, no matter how many times or how often you brush them away or try to swat them. Ignoring and annoying are games flies know how to play very well.

Flies also have a very highly developed sense of smell, and a voracious appetitive. They're like uninvited guests who haven't eaten for two days. Sometimes I think they live just to make a person swear. They probably learned bad behavior from the cows.

Now you know something about corrals and what you will find in them.

As I started to say before, the way we closed the entrance from the corral into the pasture was with two strands of electric wire. At times the cows would overgraze the pasture, or it would become too dry for the grass to grow. When that happened, we would string the two strands of electric wire across the entrance for a few days. One strand was about eighteen inches off the ground, and the other was about eighteen inches above the lower strand. These two strands were hard wired to the electric fence that enclosed the corral.

If you've never been in touch with electricity, let me tell you, it's a shocking experience. There are some things you should know about electric fences. One is that they are electric. Duh! Another is that they operate on an interrupting electrical pulse. There is a lie saving purpose for this. If the fence is continuously electric, and someone happens to accidentally grab the fence (dumb to do it on purpose), he would be unable to let go, and he would be electrocuted. 

Well, back to me and my brother. Did I mention that parents hope the younger brother will only follow his brother's good examples? Do you ever wonder how parents pray for teenage boys? "Dear Lord, please let them come home alive, in one piece. We can't afford another trip to the ER."

The gate being hard wired to the electric corral fence meant we either had to disconnect the power to the whole fence or find another way into the pasture. The only way to Power down the whole fence was to disconnect the main gate into the corral. This gate was on the other side of the corral from the pasture. You might think this would be a sensible idea. Not so. If we disconnected that gate, it left an opening for the cows to escape.

You may have noticed that cows have two eyes, but have you noticed that they are placed on either side of their head? I think this is so they can keep one eye on you, and one eye on the gate - in case someone disconnects the power and forgets to reclose the gate. Cows are one of the dumbest creatures God created, but they have an overly developed sense for causing trouble. Being trouble makers is very grievous because it causes farmers to swear. A swearing man may also be the reason women say they don't wan tot marry a farmer. I think flies study the troublesome behavior of cows.

Well, anyway, once I was at the pasture gate, I didn't want to go back to the other gate and disconnect the power, and risk the rest of the day chasing convict cows. 

But how to get through an electrified gate safely? I had sometimes seen my older brother carefully bending over and stepping between the two "hot" strands. Like a good brother, he had instructed me on the proper procedure for this time saving feat. However, there are certain things a big brother forgets to tell his teenage, best friend, tagalong brother, even if he is training him to help with the chores. Little things like having longer legs. Only later would I realize how smart my big brother really was. Remember how I said that teenage boys don't believe they don't know what they're doing? Well, if big brother could do something, then I could do it too. Hah! (Did you know there are no life guards in the family gene pool?)

I had watched him carefully bend over and slide between the wires, and go and move the water. He would then come back, slide carefully between the wires and then cross the corral and let himself out of the other gate. This time saving procedure appealed to me I could have more time to do other things I wanted to. Besides, he was my big brother, and I wanted to be just like him. We were brothers in the same family, but we were not equally created. Did you know that electricity has power to permanently imprint memories in the brain?  Even now, I distinctly remember crossing that hot dusty corral to the gate into the pasture more than once. I was to learn a very profound lesson that first summer. I had an intellectual knowledge of how to get from the corral into the pasture,  but that kind of knowing is different from experience. Teenage boys often have to have an experience repeated several times before their brain waves quit crashing between their ears.

Big brother had other things to do one day, so I had to move the water. I crossed to the gate into the pasture and quickly sized up the challenge. I always thought myself to be a limber young man, but I was to learn how deceptive an ego can be. You laugh, but try it sometime if you think it's so easy. See how well you can bend over ninety degrees while keeping your back straight and your arms against your body. While in this contorted position, try stepping over one wire about eighteen inches off the ground without touching the other wire which is about eighteen inches above that one. And don't lose your balance.

The first thing you become aware of is that you really can't see how well you're bending over, or how straight you're keeping your back. You better have a good mental picture of what you're doing. Did I mention that teenage boys don't believe they don't know what they're doing?

I stood sideways to the wires, estimating how far I would need to bend over to slide between the two strands. Slowly I bent over. Then came that first time when I realized that I couldn't see how well I was bending over. (They say self-talk can be helpful in times of stress. True, but only if the person you are talking to in your head is smarter than you. He wasn't! Take it slow. Keep your arms against your body. Now lift your right leg and carefully step over the bottom wire. Danger! I now realized, too late, that I couldn't' see if my bent position had changed now that I had one leg straddling the lower wire. And I didn't know what might happen when I raised my other leg to bring it through the wires?

There was little room for error, but the room was growing bigger for terror. I was now caught in "no man's land," straddled between two electric wires. Doubt had begun to enter my mind. I realized I was trapped. Truth does not always set you free. There was no way to escape the dilemma except to keep going.

I want to tell you, I'm not given to screaming, only because I can't when I'm being electrocuted. I wasn't bent over straight enough. That top wire touched me right down the middle of my back. Do you want to know what happens when electricity hits you on the back when you're bent over? I'll tell you. You instinctively drop to get away from the pain. Do you want to know what happens when you drop when you're straddling an electric wire? I'll tell you. That wire hits you right between the legs. DO you want to know what happens when an electric wire hits you between the legs when you're bent over? I'll tell you. You instinctively raise up to getaway from the pain. Do you want to know what happens when you're bent over beneath an electric wire and suddenly raise up? Never mind!

I finally fell through the gate into the pasture. O, blessed day! I was alive and still had all my body parts. I will say, however, that I had instantly acquired a considerable increase of energy, more spring in my step..

I returned to the gate after moving the water, invigorated and self-assured. I had considered my previous experience and determined that I was no smarter than I was a few minutes earlier. This was to prove an overestimation of my intelligence. I still could not see how well I was bending over. I had determined, however, that the problem was I was too high when bent over the first time. I wasn't going to make that mistake again. I carefully bent over, making certain I was lower this time. I was so focused on being lower that I didn't realize it was possible to be too low until it was too late. The first charge hit me between the legs. Nature took over. I rose suddenly, being hit down my backside. Nature is cruel! I instinctively dropped and was hit again between the legs. Mercifully, I finally lost my balance and fell through the gate onto the hot, dusty and aromatic ground. "Please God, let me grow up to be a man!"

Yep, summer days were made for boys with crashing brain waves.