Dumb

A 15-year-old boy is about the dumbest thing on God’s earth ... he’s so dumb that he figure’s he knows just about everything there is to be know and it’s his duty to make everybody he encounters aware of that fact. I was about that age and intelligence level when, at the outset of a fairly long auto trip alone with my father, I made some archly witty observation concerning “dumb farmers…” forgetting for the moment the occupation followed by my father, grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great grandfather, uncles, aunts, cousins … not to mention a pretty much duplicate genealogy on my mother’s side. His reaction was pretty straightforward … the longest and least successful game of 20 Questions I can recall … What’s a good average yield for second-crop hay? How do you tell when a heifer is going into heat? What’s the best treatment for white scours in week-old pigs? …

I wasn’t as dumb getting out of the car as I was going in. Neither were farmers.