Attack at Dawn

In 1961 I was 15 years old. I had taken a job on a dairy in Artesia California, the one-time dairy capital of the world. I was paid $3 a morning, my duties included pitchforking hay to 120 hungry cows. I also washed out the barn after the cows had been milked. Six dollars for rubber boots was more than I could afford so I was always barefoot; I would just squirt my feet off if I stepped in cow dung. Many years later when I told my own kids about my work ethic they'd moan, “We know; 'in the snow, barefooted up-hill both ways'…”

My parents grew up on a farm in Meridian Oklahoma with a strong reverence for animals. My dad had a large scar on his foot from where a pig had attacked him. He had inadvertently backed into a mama pig who was nursing her babies. My dad didn’t blame the sow, “She was doing what comes natural…she was protecting her young'ns.” I think that these life lessons sank into my subconscious.

It was a cold and blustery March morning. The barn was nearly pitch-black with the exception of a naked 60 watt light bulb about every 30 yards that gave off an eerie glow. I made a mistake having watched the original Frankenstein film the night before. When I went to work dark and early that morning, kinda skittery as I half expected Frankenstein to make an appearance at any time. I went about tossing hay to the cows who knew to come to the stanchions when they saw me coming. All of a sudden terror struck me. I was being attacked-- from above. I started flailing my arms, swinging wildly and screaming at my attacker. I couldn’t tell what was attacking me, a bat? I just kept screaming and flailing and running as fast as I could for the milk barn.

The farmhands asked me, “Why haven’t you finished feeding the cows…they need to get milked.” I explained that a giant bat had attacked me. They just laughed and called me assorted names. Some of them questioned my manhood, "Why didn’t you pitch fork it?” I tried to start to explain about Frankenstein from the night before, but I immediately realized that was a mistake. One guy told me to go home and get a note from my Mommy and to tell that mean-old -bat to leave me alone.

With no choice, I went back outside, all the more alert. I thought I saw something swooping and flying around the hay barn. It was starting to get light. I thought it might be a pigeon, but no, this bird swooped and turned rapidly as if looking for a mouse to eat. It slowed and swooped near the ground; I realized it was a barn owl on a hunting expedition. I thought I detected movement but I was afraid to get too close. I held the pitchfork at the ready position. I crept closer to the movement on the ground. Finally I could make it out -- it was an owlet, too young to fly. The story of the pig attacking my dad flashed across my mind.

I knew what I had to do. When mama owl swooped high into the hay loft I ran over and scooped the owlet up. He tried to bite me. I trapped him in my shirt tails and started to scale the bales of hay. I headed for where I saw the mama owl disappear. I saw the nest there were a few other babies in the nest. As I neared the nest what I feared most happened; mama owl with wrath in her eyes came after me. I did not feel like Steve Irwin. I covered my face as her wings slapped me. It didn’t really hurt but it was still unnerving. I flopped the owlet from my shirt tails and it landed in the nest.

You would have thought she would have been satisfied with my heroics, but no. I was beaten but not bowed. I had done my good deed but it was never to be known…Mama Owl wasn’t talking and I wasn’t about to recount the story to the men milking the cows. I could hear them laughing…"Uphill, both ways!”