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This is a story about Charles.  Charles lives in Richmond and is about as good a Democrat as you can find.  Charles works for living but still finds time to help local candidates put up and take down their campaign signs, hang signs on the headquarters, or do whatever needs doing at the moment.   Everybody pitches in a couple of dollars because Charles is also supporting his sister, who lost a leg a couple of years ago.

On his way home last Friday, Charles noticed a fella in his neighborhood was taking down a fence and replacing it with a big ole chain link fence.  Charles noticed that they were just throwing away the t-posts from the old fence.  He stopped and asked that if he would come take them down, could he have them?  The property owner said, “Sure!”

T-posts are about $3 each and it takes two of them to put up a 4 by 4 foot “Vote Democratic” sign.  It takes three of them for a 4 by 8 foot one.  That starts adding up to some major bucks in a small county with lots of rural areas that need covering.  Charles knows an opportunity when he sees one.

So Charles shows up at lunchtime today with a friend of his and they start removing the t-posts.  They were going along pretty well when all a sudden the friend hollers, “Charles, lookie!”

Sure ‘nuf, the owner hadn’t moved the cows from his field and they were strolling down the street.  Charles took me back to where this all happened so we could re-enact it like those big time journalists.  This is a picture of Charles right where he was when his friend hollered “Lookie!

This ain’t Charles’ first rodeo, so he grabs one of the posts and starts herding the cows back into the fenced area.  A cowboy is a guy who gets paid to be smarter than a cow.  Charles’ friend wasn’t a cowboy.  He took out running the other direction and stayed about 8 feet off the ground until Charles herded Old Bossy and The Girls.

So, Charles gets all the cows pinned and re-starts his work.  About 10 minutes later, there’s another “Lookie!” moment.  It seems that cows from God only knows where are moseying down the street headed straight for the elementary schoolyard.

No kidding.  A whole mess of them.  More than even Lassie and Roy Rogers could handle.  Pretend there are a bunch of cows in the schoolyard.  Charles, of course, did not have  time to come get me while this was actually happening so this picture was taken later.

The schoolyard did not get decowed easily.

Charles starts herding again but wasn’t making a whole mess of progress.  Apparently, some citizen saw a crazed man chasing cows with a t-post hollering up a storm while his friend was trying to climb the light pole.  The citizen called the police.

“What’s going on?” the policeman asked as he pulled up in his cruiser.

“Sir, if you tell me, we’ll both know,” Charles responded.  “It appears that there are cows loose in a schoolyard.  But, I’m not a trained professional so I could be wrong.”

To tell you the truth, I don’t think  Charles really said that stuff about the trained professional because a man could get arrested for POPO (pissin’ off a police officer) for talk like that.

The police officer pulled himself up to full height and said to Charles, “You could get into trouble for something like this.”

Now, admittedly, Charles ain’t Perry Mason but he couldn’t figure what law he’d broken:  maybe first degree cowing?

So, both Charles and the police office continue to stand there and look at the cows.

Finally, Charles asks the officer, “what do you want to do about this?”

The police officer responds that he’s going to call Animal Control.

And Charles swears he’s not lying about his.  The police officer said —

“I’ll call Animal Control and they’ll come shoot them.”

Now Charles ain’t Albert Einstein but even he knows that shooting a cow in front of an elementary school seems a bit of an overload.  First, it’ll make a helluva mess.  Second, you’d traumatize little children.  Third, there’s that whole ‘oops, I missed and hit a kid’ thing.  And, lastly – it’s just a damn cow.

So Charles finds himself standing in front of a schoolyard pleading with a police officer to have mercy for some cows.

“I don’t think he was from around here,” Charles says as the understatement of the year.

Charles herded the remaining cows back into the field and barbed wired the opening in the fence.

So, Charles’ Democratic t-posts are staying put until the cows get moved.

We’ve already promised him that we’ll make bail if someone tries to file charges for felony mooing.  We’ve also promised not to tell this story to people who might laugh.  So, don’t laugh.  Charles holds the laughing rights to this whole story and he wants a couple of dollars for it.

o