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This is a story that I wrote for my sister.
She was having some depression issues over some drama with one of my teenage
nieces. I'm sure anyone who has a teenager can relate to that.
Love you too seester!
You need some more cheerin' up??! I can tell you about dear old Joe. :)
We have a donkey!! His name is Joe. I know that he is of the Sicilian
Donkey breed .. and not a mule, a jackass, or miniature burro .. because
I've seen pictures on the net and he has a cross on his shoulders and up
his back just like the ones on this webpage.. with an interesting but
thankfully misleading title.
http://www.slate.com/id/2137259/?nav=tap3>1=7932
Joe is just as sweet as hard candy on a stick when he's behaving and in
the pasture .. gentle enough for children to put flowers in his hair and
giggle at him for as long as they are still in his presence .. and then
shake the flowers out and eat them when the children leave.
... but when he's on the warpath.. he's an animal. ...
Joe's broken free from the back 40 twice since we got him..once was my
fault.. the other was not. The first time I left the gate open because
Eric was following me down the hill and Joe was so far down in the pasture
I couldn't even see him... so I didn't want to shut him out and make him
have to open the gate again. Big mistake. Duke ( 8 year old wolf-chow mix dog )
ran down in the back and was barking at Joe and spooked the poor young feller ( Joe = about 3 yrs old at the time).
Joe bolted out the gate! ( Eric just watched from in front of the Jeep
as I was busily unloading the feed from the back.. he had left the gate
open behind me too .. :-) )
The chase had begun..
apparently Joe is a big fan of the chase-me game. He ran just across the street
and was into the neighbor's garden.. I figured oh COOL I'll just get a bucket
of feed and shake it at him and he'll be all over me! With heavy emphasis on the
"I figured"..
As I was getting ready to jet across the street with the bucket.. with
Joe still standing in the garden.. when I discovered that our poor neighbor
Ms Lottie was inconsiderate enough to have had a mild coronary infarction ...
and a bright red truck with lights a flashin' on its roof came TEARING down
the street in front of me ... looking for the place that had called the
ambulance ( apparently emergency vehicles are not quite as adept at
maneuvering the streets of Amity as they could be.. or they weren't
given adequate details.. 'cause they were running around looking for
like half an hour even after THAT trying to find out who had called.
Don't worry .. the ambulance made it while they were still looking and
Ms Lottie pulled through just fine in the end )
Needless to say.. Joe was not a fan of the flashing lights and roaring
engine.... much less the fast moving big red scary thing..
BOLT again off he goes.. he cut across and into a yard with a chain link
fence.. the little old lady inside and her grandchildren were chasing
him as he loped around and had a good old time ... but he escaped the same way he
came in after a couple of turns through the yard.. and ran another block
down to the "parking lot" for the office of the Amity Standard ... the
local paper.
I would say offices.. but .. it's a little wooden building like a
depression-era storefront.. out in the middle of a large dirt lot across
from Barksdale Lumber to the north.. and Holmes timber pulpwood lot to
the southwest. Joe feigned a turn due west and down the highway toward
Glenwood ... then when nobody could see anymore cut back east into the
woods. He's a clever little beast.
So the trail went cold .. I was afoot.. and out of breath.. and Eric was
... well he was waiting for me to get back to tell him what to do ..
Eric's 12 .. was only 10 at the time
so I walked on back to the house and got the jeep. I took a couple turns up
and down the highway.. figured Joe was lost to us.. and technically at the time
he did not even BELONG to us.. he was originally given to our neighbor
Toby Markham.. who paid a guy $40 to bring him on over in a trailer and turn
him loose in the back 40. Joe is far from domesticated by most definitions.
Toby was gonna be irritated. I knew he was.. Toby doesn't get mad tho.. just irritated.
Anyway Toby and I cruised up and down highway 8 trying to catch a glimpse of him..
no sign of a donkey anywhere. We went back to the house and I gave Toby the $40 that he
had paid to get the donkey there, and we had just settled down to take a break from the
search and call it even. Then ... Toby's uncle Casey ( same age as Toby ) came barrelling
down the street with news that a donkey had been spotted over by the railroad tracks..
and was reportedly now in the downtown square right by Chamber's Bank!
Zoom! Off went the chase.. Eric even piled into the Jeep in hopes of helping out..
Eric was in love with the little beast from the start ... kindred spirits I say ...
hahahaha ....
We didn't catch up with him at the bank .. and were in the process of searching
radiating our from the square when a young man later identified as " Puddin' " ..
came up and asked if we "was the ones lookin' for that donkey?"
When we replied yes, He said jump in the back.. he's right down here!! ..
and Eric jumped in the back of this complete stranger's truck and they sped off
to the rescue of his beloved beast of burden.
We caught our first glimpse of Joe in the spotlight
... about a block down from Puddin's house in the back of his neighbor's field.
( ... fortunately Puddin' did not tote Eric off to a tool shed and disembowel him with a scythe because it wasn't anything to do with Eric taking any kind of precaution against it ... )
We were related a tale of how apparently Puddin' had once owned the donkey..
it was at that point that we discovered his name was Joe. Before that he was just that donkey.
He had only been with us for a few days.
The chase went on... at this point.. everyone was in on the game..
there were at LEAST a dozen young men.. possibly the whole population
of Amity betwen the ages of 18 and 25... running around like chickens
with their heads cut off trying to corner and catch poor Joe..
who really only wanted to play the chase-me game.
Eventually ( about 3 hours after the great escape ) the chase led to a lot
that was penned in on 3 sides with about a 6 foot chain link fence.
Joe was cornered.. nothing to do.. nowhere to run.. boxed in.. and Puddin'
( self proclaimed "team roper ) ... tried to get a rope around him.
Puddin' missed by at least 7 feet from about 10 feet away.. and Toby exclaimed
"team roper my a.. give me that rope man!!" ...
and got a rope on Joe's neck with the first toss.
I was still catching up.. had fallen behind a bit in the chase and as I came upon
the crew.. I saw that we had indeed accomplished
... something ...
I mentioned to Toby and Puddin' that it was nice that they had made so much progress..
but that I would NOT want to be the one holding onto that rope or caught up in it
if Joe were to get out of that corner.
Joe seemed quite ready to convince everyone that the game was done at that point..
behaving surprisingly well the moment the rope was applied!
... BUT ... when they tried to move/lead him out.. he sat down on his hind quarters
in that typical "stubborn as a mule" type pose.. ( which by the way.. a mule has NOTHING
on an uncut male donkey in the way of stubbon streaks ) .
Puddin' was also forced to recall the time he had not been ABLE to let go of the rope
while playin' chase me.. and had been penalized by being drug around the square by the
captured arm suffering several contusions, fractures, and lacerations of MANY of his extremities
aka ... "I got ALL busted up"
So.. the rope was fashioned into a makeshift harness.. and the other end tied to the
bumper of a pickup truck.. and try as he might to resist and get started on another
round of "chase-me".. he was only able to kick, buck, and bray..
as he was towed back to his designated home base behind one of those annoying large
noisy things that scared him off in the first place...
or was that the second place..
Anyway.. he was back at the house.. and he was happy once he got there..
all the way down the street and in the gate kicking and screaming
( apparently that's an important part of the chase-me game )
.. and then boom.. like the lights went out..
( it had been dark for several hours at that point ) ..
he turned back into the calm and collected sweet as hard candy on a stick Joe donkey!
That's Joe for ya.. hope he kept you entertained today
Luvya bunches sis!!
O
