Today’s
point involves the reticulum; the wondrous second
stomach found in four-stomached ruminants. The
lining of the reticulum has honey-comb shaped
chambers and you can find this bleached white
stomach tissue sold as “tripe” in specialty meat
counters. Certain cultures consider tripe a
delicacy, but I have avoided breaking bread with
such cultures and anticipate maintaining a perfect
score in that regard in the future.
In real life, the chambered reticulum has the odd
tendency of collecting accidently swallowed
indigestible matter like wire, nails and staples.
These objects can remain idly trapped in the stomach
honey-combs for years before a grunting event, such
as straining to deliver a calf, suddenly forces the
foreign body through the stomach wall. Due to its
close proximity, the object generally pierces the
diaphragm before lodging in the animal’s heart sack.
The infected fluid developing around the heart
restricts its ability to pump and eventually our
ruminant suffering from “hardware disease” dies from
heart failure. I’ve seen dozens of these over the
years.
My family raised Gelbvieh cattle about the time I
graduated from vet school and our herd bull was
named Lucky Strike. He was a nice bull with a
puppy-dog attitude, so when his genetic potential
wasn’t being collected and frozen, he just hung
around the barnyard eating, sleeping and watching
TV—just like people on extended unemployment
benefits. It was a nice spring morning and Mom
noticed Lucky staring over the corral fence. “I’ll
give you some oats,” she thought as she unsnapped
the chain to the stall containing the grain bins. In
the dim light of the barn, she dumped a coffee can
of oats in one of the three empty five-gallon
buckets sitting on the granary floor. She called
Lucky to the black rubber feed bunk, dumped in the
oats and scratched his back as he gobbled the grain.
If the story were to end here it would have a Walt
Disney ending. It doesn’t end here.
One hour later, my older brother, Dana, walked
through the corral and glanced into Lucky’s feed
bunk; lining its bottom were two pounds of nails and
staples. Apparently, and for reasons which will
never be known, someone had placed their scrap
fencing bucket in the granary next to the other feed
buckets. Mom had a two out of three chance of
grabbing a safe bucket, but in the darkness she
chose bucket number one. Here’s where the story
switches to me.
My clinic was 125 miles away and Dana called to
explain the “hardware disease” mishap. We had three
options: 1) Hope Lucky was a picky eater and do
nothing. 2) Drop a magnet in him and fall back to
option one. 3) Take Lucky to surgery, empty 300
pounds of ingesta one handful at a time from his
rumen and reticulum to clear it of the nails and
staples. Knowing that the failure of options #1 and
#2 would be fatal, and understanding there is a
significant risk of infection with surgery, we
debated our choices. Hard decisions are hard by
definition—if it was easy they would be called easy
decisions. Sticking my neck in the noose, I took
Lucky to surgery and this brings me to my political
point.
Our great American republic has slowly devolved from
a nation founded on freedom into a welfare state of
wealth redistributive programs. We are teetering on
the brink of financial collapse. To right our
listing ship, someone must step forward and make
some very difficult decisions. The political left
supports Marxist policies so it is foolish to expect
those who burdened us with socialist programs, and
who are about to enslave us under Obamacare, to
suddenly flip positions and support America’s
founding principles. On the other hand, although the
Republican platform is based on small government,
many of their rank and file members are spineless
pansies. They are terrified of unfavorable polling
and just last week Rep. Joe Heck (R-Nevada) squirmed
away from his previous statement calling Social
Security a pyramid scheme. So who will it be?
Scattered throughout the political arena in every
state is a handful of new patriots whose love of
country far outweighs their love of politics. When
the Dereks, the Champs, the Dans, the Kristins, the
Alans, the Ryans, and the Joannes, step forward to
make the hard decisions why don’t you stand up and
guard their backs? America was founded by ordinary
people doing extraordinary things—what say you?
Author’s note: Lucky Strike did not swallow a single
nail or staple and he recovered well from surgery.
America may not be so Lucky.
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