No Bull
May 22 2006
Zeke really could whip anything that walked on four legs. My Uncle Carl McDonald
had some white face Hertford cattle in a pasture below our house. In the pasture
among those cows was a really mean bull. Sometimes Gary, Ken, and I would take a
shortcut across that pasture if we were too lazy to walk around and felt like taking our
lives into our own hands. For just as soon as that old bull spotted us in his domain
surrounded by his harem of cows inside a barbed wire fence, he would lower his head
and charge like a locomotive and would be only steps behind us as we hit the ground
and rolled to safety under the fence.
One needed not to go to the expense of a round-trip plane ticket and lodging
accommodations to Pamplona, Spain for the Running of Bulls. Pamplona is a city
located in northern Spain that has an annual nine day celebration to honor its patron
saint, San Fermin. This celebration includes music, dances, parades, religious
ceremonies, bullfights, and fireworks. What started out in the early days of the city as
a simple but practical way to get the bulls through town to deliver them to the market
became an international draw overnight. This popular event owes its' notoriety to
Ernest Hemingway. In 1926, Mr. Hemingway wrote a novel entitled The Sun Also
Rises. According to Hilary Hemingway, niece of the famous writer, "He took a small
town festival and really immortalized it in his words so well and so eloquently ... that
it became romantic." Each morning at 8:00 AM during the festival, the running of the
bulls begin. The bulls are released from a pen on a city street and run like crazy with
a herd of even crazier people sprinting in front of these mad cows. The run ends in the
city bullring. A mere three minute run usually produces blood and gut encounters
captured on film to be shown on the 7:00 PM evening news. No, one needed not to
go to Spain in the late ' 50s; a trip through Uncle Carl's pasture could be just as
thrilling and potentially just as gory.
One summer afternoon, Zeke happened to be with Gary, Ken, and me as we
attempted to shortcut and sneak across Uncle Carl's field. The bull, ever protective of
his territory, spotted us and came charging. Zeke being playful ran along beside us
until Gary fell. We could not let our little brother get gored by Uncle Carl's bull. If
Gary got gored, Daddy would know that we had been in Uncle Carl's pasture after he
told us to stay out. Taking a chance on getting gored did not seem as painful as one of
Daddy's spankings. We had to take a chance to avoid the spanking by doing
something heroic; Gary would heal from a bull gore but Ken and I would undergo
pain only from Daddy, not pain from the bull. Suddenly, mighty Zeke, sensing danger
instead of play, lowered his head like his opponent and charged the bull. Both
animals stopped and stared at each other in Mexican stand-off fashion (I told you it
was not necessary to go to Spain)) as Gary, Ken, and I rolled under the three stranded
barbwire fence. We watched from the safe side of the fence as Zeke analyzed an
enemy who was at least twelve to fifteen times larger than himself and had every
intent of goring Zeke to death. Quickly, Zeke attacked and grabbed that bull by the
nose. Immediately, that white faced demon dropped to his knees. With locked jaws,
Zeke twisted and twisted the head of the bull. Just as Zeke was about to flip that bull
onto his side, I whistled and called his name. Zeke released his death grip and the old
bull stood up and ran in the opposite direction. That's no bull! Never again did that
bull chase my brothers and me, with or without Zeke. I decided then if I ever chose to
go to Pamplona, Spain to participate in the Running of the Bulls, Zeke would make
the trip with me. Likewise, you guessed it, that's also "no bull" but a vivid precious
childhood memory of growing up in Rockingham, North Carolina - a small textile
town in the South in the ' 50s & ' 60s.
To be continued ...