Too Many Bozos
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| Wayne, Keith, Roger, and Keith with animals |
Too Many Bozos (20 September 2019)
Since April is now officially a college student, today’s post is about Bozos...
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| April on her first day of school |
Too Many Bozos, written by Lilian Moore and illustrated by Susan Perl is a story about a young boy that really wants a dog, because he knows the perfect name for a pet dog, Bozo! Over time and using various means this young boy brings home a frog, ants, mice, and other “pets”, each of which he names Bozo, and each of which his mother makes him get rid of after it causes sufficient nuisance in the house. Apparently his efforts were more heroic than your efforts, because unlike your parents, his mother eventually gives her son a dog, which he promptly names Bozo!
Today I will introduce you to some of the animals from the farm, most of which weren’t named, so I will call each one Bozo...
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| Brian, Eugene, Wayne, Keith, Scott, and Ronald with a dog and four cats |
Meet Bozo the Cat… we had a lot of cats over the years, all of which lived outside. They would stay warm in the garage and would feed them some (mostly dinner scraps and a little dry feed), but they mainly survived by catching mice. Watching a cat catch, play with, and eat a mouse is a traumatic experience for a young boy. I guess that’s why I remember it so well...
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| Trigger and Trap when they were young |
Meet Bozo the Dog… actually this is Trigger and Trap. They are the dogs I remember the best. They would jump in the back of the pickup and ride everywhere around the farm. They would lean over the edge of the truck bed into the wind (true aerodynamicists!) as we drove. They would lean so far that we learned to reach our arm out the window to catch them from falling out when we took a sharp turn. If they still fell, we would slow down so they could catch up to the truck and jump into the back. Trigger and Trap were not good at herding cows, but they went everywhere around the farm with us, and were great pals. I also remember a beautiful black dog named Chip, another dog we had to get rid of when it started attacking our neighbor’s sheep, and a dog named Dog (that might be Dog in the third picture, but I am not sure).
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| Eugene, Brian, and Eldon with a cow |
Meet Bozo the Cow… I guess it goes without saying that dairy farms have cows. We numbered them instead of naming them, so let’s just call them all Bozo. I am pretty sure they’ve been called worse names. Cows are great- they taught us patience, persistence, and how to work. These cows supplied us with milk that I drank daily and put on my LIFE cereal, and cream that I poured over cracked wheat cereal and sometimes on my carrot cake. They also provided our large family many meals, for which I am very grateful, even though I didn’t always appreciate my dad discussing what cow we were eating.
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| Two Greenwood boys with the geese |
Meet Bozo the Goose… these geese just kind of adopted our farm, wandered all over, and left their droppings for us to step in. I admittedly teased them at times, pretending to get their eggs so they would chase and hiss at me. That’s probably when my dad decided I had too much free time and gave me more chores. We didn’t do much else with the geese, but my parents would often let the FFA come get a couple for their annual fund-raising banquet.
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| Roger on a horse. |
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| Roger, Wayne, and Keith with the sheep |
Meet Bozo the Sheep… we had sheep when I was quite young. My most vivid memory is the time I had to go through the field of sheep to feed the calves. I got scared each time I crossed the fence because the sheep started walking towards me, so I would go back over the fence. Eventually a big brother came and walked with me to show me there was nothing to be scared of.
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| Bald eagle |
Meet Bozo the Bald Eagle... we loved that bald eagles came back every year for several years to nest in these trees. They are just amazing birds. We also had many hawks that nested in our trees. My most vivid hawk memory is when one of which swooped down on me from behind as I was walking alone through a nearby field. The hawk came so suddenly, so close, and screeched so loud I was terrified and ran! I guess she thought I was a danger to her offspring. I don’t know where the seagulls nested, but flocks of them would circle overhead as we worked the fields, swooping down to catch the newly-exposed mice and other rodents for dinner.
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| Grandma Greenwood and Ronald with his new 22 rifle |
Meet Bozo the Vermin… according to Google dictionary, vermin are “wild animals that are believed to be harmful to crops, farm animals, or game, or which carry disease, e.g. rodents.” For us, vermin consisted mostly of squirrels, badgers, the skunk that sprayed me before school one day when I was walking in from feeding the calves, and an endless supply of rock chucks. There were definitely too many rock-chuck Bozos!
After we were properly trained, and at least eight years old, we were allowed to use the BB guns to shoot squirrels. At 12 years of age, and after taking a hunter safety course, we could use the 22 rifles to shoot the bigger vermin. Guns were just a part of farm life. We were taught to respect what they could do and handled them accordingly. We often had them with us in the tractor or the truck and we shot a lot of rock chucks over the years. We may have also shot a water pipe or two that we had to repair. Don’t ask how I know, but trying to shoot a rock chuck hiding inside a pipe, or even a squirrel sitting on a pipe, will almost always result in a “holey pipe”.
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| Grandpa Forsberg teaching Caleb how to shoot a revolver |
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| Marci preparing to meet Bozo the Vermin |
You might ask what this story has to do with college. Well, I don’t know, except maybe your dad gets worried with all those Bozos about… but I suppose there might be some good Bozos in the bunch…
So the moral of the story is...
- Don’t play with your food like a cat.
- Sometimes we just need someone to walk with us when we’re scared.
- Don’t mess with hawks… or geese.
- Some Bozos turn out okay.
I love you!!!
Dad
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| The college send-off... look at those guns! |
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