It was
the early ‘90s and my new veterinary practice was
growing rapidly. The harder, faster, smarter, and
longer I worked, the better the cash flowed, which
is completely contrary to President Obama’s recent
declaration of “you didn’t build that.” (I have the
scars to prove I did build it.) As I was always
seeking new ways to gain market share, I purchased a
16 foot gooseneck trailer and tweaked it into a
fully enclosed, large animal, surgical unit. I
planned on backing the trailer up to the rotting
remnant of a farmer’s corral, loading a cow with a
calving problem into my surgical suite, performing a
c-section, and then hosing it clean before racing
down the road to the next case. It appeared
brilliant on paper.
Because it is contradictory to pull something as
classy as a surgical suite with a hail damaged ranch
pickup, I traded my ‘84 half-ton for a brand new,
Ford Supercab. The blue and silver Ford so perfectly
matched the paint scheme on the trailer; I parked it
in plain view of Main Street so clients driving by
could marvel at my handiwork. In the parking lot, my
surgical trailer was impressive, but there was one
day my brilliance unraveled, prompting me to abandon
the entire idea.
It was a Tuesday morning, when I raced out to my
first calving call of the day. Steve and Rob’s cow
was in an old barn a good half mile from their
calving shed, so this was a perfect time to use my
surgery trailer. I rolled to a stop in their
barnyard and pointing through an old corral, I
asked, “Can I pull my trailer through there, and
back up to the barn door?”
Rob answered, “Yes,” so I blasted into the corral.
What Rob actually said was, “Yes…but you will
probably get stuck.” He was right. I buried my
pickup and trailer in a 50-year-old, composting mass
of straw and manure. Fixing the cow and then getting
unstuck cost me an hour I did not have and feeling
the pressure, I hustled to get back to the clinic. I
was nearly there, when Teresa radioed saying I had a
uterine prolapse at Bill’s up in Molt, so I raced
north out of town, fixed the prolapse and sped back
to Laurel. I had barely rolled to a stop at the
clinic, when Teresa radioed there was a ewe with
lambing problems in Joliet. (Teresa never did like
me.) The trailer was not needed for this call, so I
dropped the tailgate, cranked the gooseneck off the
ball and trotted into the clinic to fill my coffee
cup. As I sprinted back to my pickup, I wondered if
I should just leave my tailgate down for the 16
miles to Joliet, or stop and close it after pulling
away from the trailer. Distracted by the pressure, I
absent mindedly flicked the tailgate shut, jumped in
the pickup, stomped the gas and zoomed ahead for
about 48 inches.
The feel of a gooseneck bending a new tailgate into
a “V” is indescribably painful. Exasperated, I
jumped from the pickup like a raving mad man and
tried to jerk the tailgate open. It was stuck. I
needed to get to Joliet and with my blood pressure
fully pegged, I hopped back in the driver’s seat,
backed up and smacked it again. After three jerks,
the tailgate was hopelessly wedged in place and the
sides of the pickup were tapering inwards. Figuring
the tailgate would eventually lose interest and let
go, I dragged the trailer all over the parking lot,
going so far as to block the trailer tires before
ramming it again and again. I was wrong and I was
stuck. My friend, Mark, drove up about then and
spotting the veins popping out on my neck, asked if
he could help. With his calming influence, we
methodically and slowly disassembled the tailgate
latch assembly and freed my pickup from the trailer.
Had Mark not appeared, I might still be dragging
that trailer around my parking lot, so I learned,
when all seems lost it is best to step back and look
at things from a different perspective. This brings
me to my point.
Many Republicans went to bed election night with the
same crazed look as I did when I smashed my new
tailgate. Desperately desiring power, party pundits
are demanding the GOP modify their platform and join
the Democrats in offering free goodies to America’s
50 million “tooth fairy voters”; those demanding
free contraception, free abortion, free food stamps,
amnesty and Obama-phones. Calm down; you are acting
like crazy veterinarian. The Democrat platform is
founded on the Marxist principles of freebies and it
will be impossible for the GOP to out fairy the
tooth fairy. Engaging the Democrats in a
give-away-war will guarantee financial collapse
because we are shooting each other with the same
taxpayer dollars. Instead, the GOP must shift to the
right; back to our country’s founding principles.
There we will find enough Libertarians and
Constitutionalists to help us restore our great
American republic.
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