I’ve had a lifelong and somewhat random fascination with cows.  I’m not really sure how this came about…there weren’t a lot of cows where I grew up, so it wasn’t from immersion in cow culture.  If pressed I probably would have to say I was a city girl (not CITY city, but you get the gist) and I don’t recall being exposed to an unusual amount of cow literature.

And yet here we are.

I took on a loan for my final year in college that would be forgiven if I completed two years of teaching in a rural or inner city school.  My loan was forgiven in only one since I taught special education – a high need area – in a rural setting.  This is how I landed in a sweet little town in southern Virginia right after graduation.

My apartment was across from a pasture.  Coincidentally, so was my school seeing as I basically drove across the street to get to work.  Which meant every morning and every afternoon I was greeted by the peaceful sight of content black and white cows grazing.  (I hear tell they’re called Holsteins by those who are immersed in cow culture.)

Every single day without fail I’d drive past that pasture and smile at the cows.  It’s the place where the word bucolic first resonated with me.  And no matter how hard my day had been, regardless of how much work I was taking home, the sight of those cows always gave me a sense of tranquility.

I’ve given BrightSide a hard time about this “jeep!” and “punch buggy!” game, but I’m not exactly innocent myself.  For years now road trips have been punctuated by outbursts (mostly mine) of “cow!” as we passed farms and fields.  As I recall there may have even been the occasional mooo…

Then we have Twister.  (The movie, not the game.)  There’s a scene that for reasons unknown makes me bust a gut every time.  Three characters are in a pickup truck, racing a tornado, and this is some of what we hear:

Jo:  (looking out windshield as a cow flies by)  Cow.  (pause)  ‘Nother cow.

Bill:  Actually I think that was the same one.

Melissa:  I gotta go, Julia, we got cows.

Just looking at it on the computer screen like that…well, I guess it doesn’t look that funny, reading the sentences themselves, but if you hear the voices saying it…and now I just read that sentence and realized it sounds like I’ve got voices running around in my head.

Shoot.  I better stop while I’m ahead.

So there’s another one of my secret loves.  I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a fetish, seeing as we aren’t surrounded by cows at home.  But passing a Holstein will always put a smile on my face.