 When I was little, we lived in a small town in the middle of Nebraska- a very small town. It had a small white church that my Dad preached at, a parsonage next door with tall trees and a fence (to keep me home), a train waystation with a guy that changed the train tracks, an old lady who gave me two windmill cookies when I visited her, a volunteer fire station where my Dad worked and that got quite good at rescuing me from the tall trees in our yard, a three story brick high school with swings that had mud under them that dried into big patties, an ice cream shop, and I can't remember anything else being there.
In the summer, night never came and I was sent to bed while my big brothers played baseball in the street in front of our house. I sat at the window watching them, feeling very left out until my parents would yell at me for being out of bed. Even after the lights were out, it was too bright to sleep. During the winter, night came too soon and you could hear the coyotes howling in darkness. I was scared of coyotes. I'd been warned countless times to stay away from them because they would steal little children. On the fourth of July, we went to the farm where we shot fireworks off, cranked homemade ice cream, and ran among the fireflies barefoot. My brother's best friend lived on the farm and I was shocked when we went there to get milk one day. They had cows- black and white milk cows! Real cows just like the picture in the Sunday paper and then it hit me. I wanted to have my picture taken standing next to a black and white Swiss milk cow. The next Sunday during Sunday school, I was asked if I wanted to pray over our cookies and grape Kool-Aid. "Dear God, I want to have my picture taken with a black and white Swiss milk cow while wearing a red dress with flowers on it. Amen." My Sunday School Teacher told the lady next to her in church who told the old farmer next to her who laughed aloud. The old man who kept candy in his pocket for good children after church handed me a root beer barrel and said, "Cows around here aren't the kind you take pictures with, kiddo." The train guy stopped the train and we waved at the engineer. "Cows are smelly, you know." Gretchen and her little brother stayed with us while her mother had another baby. Every day my mom combed out Gretchen's long blond hair and braided it. "When I get hair like Gretchen, I'm gonna have my picture taken with the cow," I told my mother. "It'll take a long time for your hair to grow that long," my mother said. She'd spend hours the week before trying to even out my hair after I cut it myself. Maybe I'll cut off Gretchen's braids and borrow hers, I thought. I didn't like Gretchen. She was older, bigger, meaner, bossier, and she took too much of my mother's time in the morning. Plus, I was sure she was never going home. She'd been there four days already. I sat between my brothers at church the next Sunday but they were busy punching themselves while my mother played the piano. I slipped off the pew and laid on the cool floor. You could see all kinds of things under the pews. The old ladies wrinkled hose and serious shoes, the dirt on the edges of the dress shoes from where the farmers had done one last chore before driving into town for church, and unsupervised, half-open purses were sitting on the floor waiting for someone to investigate them. Sneaking carefully underneath the pews, I crept towards the front. My mother quit playing in the middle of a song, carried me out, and spanked me- the third week in a row. "Bad girls in church will never have special things happen," she warned after telling me to quit crying and sit quietly. The root beer barrel man snuck me a piece of candy after church. I found a copy of the picture in Sunday's paper and tore it out. "I want this for Christmas," I announced at Sunday dinner. Everyone laughed. "Honey, it's too cold in December to have your picture taken with a cow," the farmer's wife said gently. "That's stupid," my biggest brother announced. ""Don't you want a doll or something?" I thought a long time. I did want a set of silver cowboy guns with a holster and real caps, but my father said I had to be eight before I could have caps and that was a whole lifetime away- four years at least. "Nope!" I said. "You can give me the dress for Christmas and I can have my picture taken when the snow melts." My mother sighed and claimed the paper saying that she needed it. I think she was hoping that if I didn't have the picture that I'd forget. But I didn't. I talked about it nonstop. I told the man scooping up Peanut butter Ice Cream. I told the little boy next door. I told the old lady with the windmill cookies. I told God four times a day- once at each meal and once at bedtime. The piano guy came and fixed the piano and brought us huge buttery cinnamon pastry called Elephant's Ears. I sat on the piano bench and described the scene to him until my mother made me leave so he could finish the piano in time for Christmas Eve. My brothers were going to be Shepherds and I could be Baby Jesus, my mother said. My dad and some of the farmers cut out camels from huge sheets of wood and sawed and hammered until a tiny house stood in front of our Church. They brought in hay. Cows! I thought! I could have my picture taken in the little house with the cows. It wouldn't be the same as standing in a green meadow with snow capped mountains in the distance, but it'd be real cows. I got sick and ran a fever that Christmas Eve and Grandpa Mac stayed with me while everyone else was outside. I cried and cried until he realized I thought there were cows out there and then he put my coat on and took me to the little building. It had red and green blinking lights, and a crowd of people gathered around. They were singing and Mac edged through them until we were up front. There were only wooden camels and sheep! Sheep are dumb AND they stink! And my brothers in bathrobes. No cows in sight. There was no special red dress with pretty flowers on it under the tree. There was a set of red felt cowboy boots with tiny silver guns that went on the side from my Grandpa Mac. Spring came and went. We gathered wild flowers for May Day and I left them on the door of the Windmill cookie lady and the train man. We rang the doorbell and rang, giggling. The fourth of July was almost there again. My brothers talked about which fireworks to buy and my mother gathered stuff for homemade ice cream. I began my campaign in earnest. Every Sunday I sat with the farmer who owned The Cow. "That cow is covered with mud," he said one Sunday. "That cow is old and mean," he said the next Sunday. "That cow has a baby," he said a bit later. "How about you come see the baby?" Then, one Saturday my mother handed me a package. It wasn't my birthday and it wasn't Christmas and Grandpa Mac wasn't in town so I didn't understand. "They ordered this from far away," she said, "so you make sure you tell them thank you today!" Inside the brown paper was The DRESS... a red one with pretty purple and blue flowers on it, with white lace and strings on the back. It was just like the dress in the picture. When we drove out to the farm, a black and white Swiss Milk Cow waited in the front yard, all clean and shiny, a ring of summer flowers around her ears. She was huge. She was taller than Grandpa Mac's car. She had big ugly brown teeth. She wasn't happy about being tied to the front gate and I was suddenly not so sure I wanted my picture taken with her. She could step on me with her gigantic feet and squish me like an ant. No, my brother was right. This was a stupid idea. But no one was waiting for me to approach the cow. They scooped me up and sat me on top of the cow. The farmer grinned. "Old lady cleaned up nicely," he said as my mother carefully framed the shot with her special "real" camera. It was a long way to the ground and the Old Lady had never had anyone sitting on her before. She squirmed. I squirmed. She looked back and bared her teeth. I fell off and landed in a fresh cow patty. After the tears and the cleaning up process, they tried again. My mother took less time framing the shot this time and I squinted. Snap. "Now," my mother said, "we have a little peace around here." It wasn't even the fourth of July and we lounged on the wraparound farmhouse porch eating blackberry ice cream. The adults were talking about how many times the fire company had to rescue me and about the time I stopped the train when the train man wasn't there and other tales they thought were very funny when I realized something. "The circus is coming to town," I said. "Did you see the poster. Is an elephant bigger than a cow? Did you see that lady standing on top of the elephant in her pink dress on the poster? Wasn't she pretty?" The adults fell silent and then laughed. "Cows, trains, and elephants," said the farmer. "At least I don't have to worry about cleaning the elephant!" *** psst... that's not my pic- it's an internet pic. the cow pic is long gone! as are all the family photos... and... I was told that Swiss cows are brown and white... which they are! But I remember it being black and white... maybe the farmers were Swiss and that's where the memory of the cow type came from? Plus when I googled it- I googled black and white swiss cow ads... duh... those cows ARE black and white... so for the record... I don't know what kind of cow it was! :) | 
