“Do you need a doctor?” Charlie asked.

Since Charlie was a man of few words, I should have engaged him in a long conversation, but I was face down in the straw and I moaned “No.”

Moments earlier there was no indication I would soon have a near-death experience. Charlie called me out to treat a lump jaw bull. The winter winds forced the bull to seek protection in the accumulated straw of an old barn. He had lost 300 pounds and had chosen this 16 foot square barn as his death bed. The situation was hopeless and I told Charlie such, but he wanted me to drain the abscess.

The bull was lying down and barely flinched when I nudged his ribs with my boot. I gently placed a loop over his head, fed the loose end of the lariat through the one single metal ring that was baling-wired to the wall and then hunted for a place to tie the rope. None existed. Charlie offered to hold the slack so he took the lariat, worked his way out the door and around the corner of the barn. He braced his legs against the barn and leaned back on the rope. Charlie stood well over six foot and weighed over 250 pounds; certainly enough mass to secure an almost dead bull.

I cautiously approached the bull and nudged him a couple more times. He didn’t even blink, so I knelt in front of him and popped a needle into the abscess. The bull snorted and miraculously exploded to his feet. This was bad. The bull drew a bead on my hip pocket as I dodged back and forth around the pen. With no other escape, I sprinted towards the door, (if “sprint” describes running in insulated coveralls in knee-deep straw.)

Nylon rope makes an amazing buzzing sound when it is rapidly pulled across a metal ring and from the changing pitch, I sensed the bull was gaining on me. At the exact distance of 16 feet from the ring, I raced out the door with the charging bull six inches behind my wallet. Due to Charlie’s tenacious grip on the lariat, I collided with him coming in the door at the exact speed I was leaving. In retrospect, had I been using a shorter rope Charlie and I would have passed inside the barn and the mad bull would have been entirely his problem. With a longer lariat we would have passed in the corral…again the bull would be Charlie’s problem.

You would think a 40 year-old veterinarian could easily plow over an 80 year-old farmer tethered to a rope. Such was not the case. I bounced off Charlie on the first smack and needed the assistance of the bull to finally knock him down. With Charlie free from the equation, and with me face down in the straw, the bull did a victory dance on my ribs before blasting out the door and into the corral. This is when Charlie became a chatter box and asked, “Do you need a doctor?”


I told you that story because the mad bull is analogous to the disgruntled, conservative, Democrat voters on January 19th. Once they realized Congress was proceeding with their unpopular healthcare plan, they stomped the idea of socialized medicine right there in the Massachusetts barn doorway.

Conservative Democrats finally realized the progressives had commandeered their party and they crossed the great partisan divide to elect conservative Scott Brown to the US Senate. Bay State conservatives have shown the impossible is possible and by combining their efforts with ours, we will save the great republic “endowed to us by our Creator...”

For four years I have penned words to shed the light of truth on political posturing. Politicians portraying themselves as “progressives” are deceptive about their true objectives. They speak glowingly of ideals to fool you into voting for any fantasy that gives them control over your life. “Every American has a right to free healthcare,” they profess thinking voters will never understand the impossibility of this ideal. It is like proclaiming you can raise yourself in the air by standing in a bucket and pulling on the handle. In reality it makes no difference how hard you pull on the handle. Think about it; Massachusetts voters did.