When I was about 13 or 14, Cade and I were helping Dad load some cows into our stock truck. This was before we owned the gooseneck stock trailer that we later used to haul cattle, so when we needed to move cows, we backed the stock truck up to the loading chute and ran them up the ramp into the back.
I don't remember where we were taking the cows or exactly why we were loading them that day. I just remember that we had three or four cows to load.
We had one of the cows in the loading pen and were trying to get her up the chute. As anyone who has worked cattle knows, a cow does not necessarily go where you want her to go just because there is only one obvious place for her to go.
Eventually, we got her headed toward the ramp.
Dad stepped behind her to keep her moving forward and, more importantly, to keep her from turning around.
Suddenly, the cow kicked.
She caught Dad squarely in the family jewels.
The force of the kick knocked him backward a couple of steps until he ended up with his back against the green gate behind him.
Cade and I just stood there.
Then Dad came charging forward.
He caught his shoulder underneath the cow's rear end and drove her the rest of the way up the ramp and into the truck. The cow didn't even see him coming. One moment she had kicked Dad backward into the gate. The next moment, Dad was underneath her rear end, driving her into the truck.
Once the cow was safely inside, Dad stopped to recover.
Cade and I weren't quite sure what we were supposed to do.
On the one hand, we had just watched our dad take what was obviously a significant and extremely painful injury.
On the other hand, we were still teenagers. Getting kicked in the nuts was funny.
So we didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Mostly, we just stood there, stunned, watching Dad recover and trying very hard to figure out which reaction was safest.
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