COW TIPPING

Cow Tipping When I was a kid the group of boys I hung around with were basically pretty good kids. Not as perfect as I would like people to believe sometimes. We did make a little mischief now and then, which was hard to do in a small town. Eveyone knew all of our pranks and it was hard to come up with new ones.

We would set a bag of dog poop on fire on somebodies front step then ring the door bell and run. Out of the dozen times we tried that one, not once did anyone come running out of the house screaming and stomping on the bag to put out the fire. They would just kick it off the porch and hollor in the darkness that they were going to tell our parents. But they didn't know exactly who it was.

I guess our favorite mischief was raiding gardens. Just about everyone in town had a garden. We'd sneak around after dark and feast on cucumbers and carrots. Our favorite garden was our postmaster's. He had a higher fence but he grew strawberries and raspberries, that was living. Every now and then someone came out and chase us away. We'd head for the bushes and again they would hollor into the darkness "Get out of here before I send the dog out." Which was a laugh because just like they knew all the rotten kids in town we knew all the rotten dogs. And chances were there dog was already with us along with there kid.

But the one almighty prank of pranks, the one thing that would put us in the book of famous pranksters, would be if we could tip a cow. Let me run through this real quick for those of you who never heard of cow tipping. First off, cows sleep standing up, We did'nt know why they slept standing up, maybe thier legs won't bend that way or maybe it's to keep predators away. If it's the predator thing it didn't work to keep us away.

There was only one person in town that had cows. His first name was Premo, and He had about ten cows in a small pasture. We tried this once before, but too many guys showed up at Premo's pasture. We had a possey of twenty-five teen age boys. Premo came out and shot his shotgun in the air, we took off running in all directions and the cows scattered all over the place, what a mess. But that was the year before and we were ready to try again.

Wally was the first to mention it. He said that me and him could do it and not tell anyone else. We'd go out at midnight and tip us a cow. That sounded well and good but Wally could sneak out of his house at midnight. I couldn't, to many sisters and a brother. Some one would always wake up and set off the alarm then everyone would wake up.

I would have to tell Marty so we could go camping. It would be just the three of us. But Marty's cousin Stan was staying over, could he come along? O.K. but thats all except for Russel who was a slow runner but always wanted to tip a cow. But that was it, just the five of us.

Everything was in place. It was midnight. So the seven of us , Jim and Billy couldn't be left out either. We snuck off down the road to Premo's pasture.

We had a meeting before hand and made a plan. Wear dark cloths, no flashlights, be very quite. Aproach the cows with the wind in our faces so they could'nt smell us. When we found the right cow, Me and Wally would tip it. Every one else would be quiet and watch. If it didn't wake the others, someone else could tip the next cow, and so on. And by all means don't do the bull.

All of a suden here we are. Quitely one by one we went over the fence. We could see all the cows appeared to be sleeping. Premos house was dark, he had no dog. The wind was to our faces. We tip toed, crept and crawled up to a likely cow. We could do this. Me and Wally moved in for the score. We were at its side, the cow was sleeping, we didn't wake it. I slowly put my two hands side by side by it's front shoulder. Wally was possitioned at it's rear flank. Quitely he motioned One- two- three, and together we pushed with all our might. It wabbled, and for a second we thought it wouldn't go down. Then after the wabble it wiggled and shook. It turned fast knocking Wally down on his butt in a big warm cow pie. It took off runing and mooing and bumped into another cow that was sleeping on its feet. That one was mader then the first, it groweled at us. All the cows and the bull woke up. All mooing and running blindly in the small pasture . Seven fourteen and fifteen yeary old boys running to get out of thier way.

The cows tipped over two more boys. Stan and Billy were tipped into cow pies by diferant cows. Luckly no one got stepped on in the stampeed. We all made it over tha fence and out of danger of the mad cows. We were in the trees before Premo came out.

We didn't get a cow tipped, and we never tried again. Those cows probably were`nt even sleeping, just being quite. I think the joke was on us. But the younger boys in town thought we tipped one, so we were heros. We didn't want to dim thier impression of us so we let them think it.

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