Cow Shout Out
by John Fischer
Heads up....ears forward....waiting.....
I'm definitely getting a lot of mileage out of my weekend in Kansas. Part of what made it memorable was the fact that the man who invited me and was my host for the weekend is someone whose life and ministry paralleled mine in many ways.
This is our second weekend together in three years and I'm still going, "You're kidding; you were there too?" It is also informative seeing Kansas from the perspective of a relocated Californian (he and his wife have been transplanted from southern California to Kansas for 14 years). Someone from somewhere else is going to see Kansas much differently than one who has always been there.
One picture just won't go away. On the way to the camp, we stopped in a small town for some ice cream. My friend and his wife sometimes spend a Saturday just visiting small towns off the beaten path, and this was one of those they found. This place was far enough away from the main road that people stare at you when you walk into a restaurant because you obviously aren't from those parts.
This particular place was famous for its big scoops of ice cream, and while we were inside waiting for ours, I caught two white-haired ladies sitting side by side, their backs to a wall that was covered in a floor-to-ceiling American flag. On one hand, I craved my camera, on the other, the picture is indelibly printed on my mind. Close your eyes and you can see it too. It is the essence of Midwestern Americana. Not to mention the life-sized Statue of Liberty streetlight that graced someone's front lawn on our way back to the main highway. (It was a replica of the statue holding up an art deco streetlamp globe instead of a torch.)
But the highlight of the experience was undoubtedly the cow "shout out" game my host introduced me to. The idea is to scream, "Hey cow!" at the top of your lungs out the window as you pass a herd of bovine along the road, and the person who gets the most number of cows to actually lift their heads and look your way wins.
Well, yours truly came out on top, getting at least a dozen brown cows looking our way all at once with their red ears standing at attention. It was an amazing reaction. I didn't think they would even hear me; they were so far away. I can still see those cows with their ears up. I think I found a new audience. Now if I just knew what to do with them.
Would that we could give God the same kind of attention all the time. Heads up… ears forward… waiting…
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