The Citizen, 2006-02-02, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2006. PAGE 5.
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Cow tipping: the udder truth
There have been some classic urban
legends in my time — the choking
Doberman, the cement-filled Cadillac,
the exploding toilet, the char-broiled scuba
diver found in the ashes of a forest fire — but
none have been quite as hardy or long-lived as
the Cow Tipping urban legend.
This is more of a rural legend, actually, but
as robust a yarn as any city slicker ever
dreamed up.
Urban — and rural — legends all share three
characteristics. Number one: they stretch the
bounds of credulity completely out of shape.
Number two: they are spectacularly funny
and/or horrific. Number three: the teller of
the legend always vouches for its veracity —
but second hand. It happened to their cousin,
or their landlord, or the best friend of their
good buddy down at the plant.
Oh, and one other thing they share:
urban/rural legends are invariably bogus.
Never happened, anywhere, anytime.
This, despite the eagerness of believers to
swear on a stack of People magazines that the
stories are absolutely 100 per cent swear-to-
God true.
So it has always been with cow-tipping. I
first got wind of the alleged practice while
having a beer with a couple of alumni from the
Ontario Agricultural College in Guelph,
Ontario many years ago. They assured me
that certain college colleagues of theirs (not
themselves, you notice) occasionally got
tanked up at a tavern, then drove out in the
country looking for a little action.
When they spied a herd of unsuspecting
politicians are different from most
people because they are more
persistent — or maybe they just have
thicker skins.
They do not take rejections easily, often
hang in when told they are not wanted and can
be harder to get rid of than a stray piece of
sticky tape.
There are prime examples in two former
Ontario cabinet ministers who won seats for
the Conservatives in the federal election.
Jim Flaherty, also once deputy premier, tried
first to get elected in the 1980s and could not
even win a federal nomination, so he switched
to run provincially in 1990 and ran a dismal
third.
This should have been enough to discourage
him, but Flaherty ran again in 1995 and won.
He then rose rapidly to finance minister and
deputy to premier Mike Harris, whose far right
views he shared.
BLit Harris retired and Flaherty ran to
succeed him as leader and lost to the more
moderate Ernie Eves, who stripped him of
both his prestigious posts.
Then Eves's government was defeated.
Flaherty lost trying to succeed him as leader,
to John Tory, another moderate, and was
reduced to merely an out-of-step opposition
MPP and his days in power seemed over.
But the resilient Flaherty jumped at the
chance to run for his federal party when its
prospects seemed slim and his talent,
including being best orator in the two
leadership contests, and experience have put
him firmly in Stephen Harper's inner circle.
Former Ontario health minister Tony
Clement also 'began with a loss, in a run for-
Toronto city council, but he won two elections
provincially, became a senior minister, then
had more losses in provincial and federal
ridings and for leader of the federal party.
Now Clement has broken a longer losing
streak than the Toronto Raptors and his
background makes him similarly valuable to
Holsteins they would get out of the car, crawl
over the fence, tip toe up to the nearest
sleeping bovine, gather on one side of her,
deftly flip the beast over and run triumphantly
back to the car.
There are a number of unlikely aspects to,
this story. For one thing, Messrs Molson and
Labatt could not supply enough beer to invest
tackling a cow on its side with any significant
entertainment value.
Secondly, it would be damn hard to even
locate a herd of cows deep in the Country in the
middle of the night. Unless you used
flashlights, in which case you could expect a
reception featuring barking farm dogs,
stampeding cattle and irate farmers toting 12-
gauges loaded with rock salt.
And then there are the cows. Contrary to
popular belief, cows do not sleep standing up.
They doze but they don't sleep.
Also contrary to popular belief, cows are not
always docile, placid followers of Gandhi. I
used to work in the Ontario Public Stockyards
and I still have scars on my legs where various
Holsteins and Herefords registered their
displeasure with swift and vicious kicks.
And oh, yeah — cows are also....heavy. A
Harper.
New Democrat Tony Martirr, who won
federally for the second time after losing his
seat in the legislature, was the only MPP ever
to resign a well-paid sinecure, deputy speaker,
explaining this was a protest against Harris?s
failing to help the poor.
Another New Democrat, David
Christopherson, quit the legislature to run for
mayor of Hamilton, where he said he could be
more constructive, and lost, but now has won
two elections federally.
Conservative leader Tory failed in his first
attempt to get elected, as mayor of Toronto,
but has established himself in a much wider
role as a credible rival to Liberal Premier
Dalton McGuinty.
Transportation Minister Harinder Takhar
could not win a provincial Liberal nomination
in 1999, but won an election four years later.
Conservative Elizabeth Witmer, among the
steadiest Conservatives, could not come close
to dislodging a sitting Liberal in 1987, but
since has won four elections and been deputy
premier.
Roy McMurtry failed in his first attempt to
get in the legislature in a by-election, but won
Final Thought
Character is like a tree and reputation like
its shadow. The shadow is what we think of
it; the tree is the real thing.
— Abraham Lincoln
decent-sized Holstein can easily tip the scales
over the one-ton mark. Imagine yourself and a
couple of drunken buddies going up to a full-
size Buick and flipping it on its side.
Got that? Now imagine it as a cowhide-
covered, cranky full-size Buick with four
sharp hooves and a pair of horns.
The pointy kind, not the honky kind.
But don't take my word for it. Check out
the work of Margo Lillie, doctor of zoology at
the University of British Columbia. She and a
student, Tracy Boechler actually produced a
laboratory recreation of a hypothetical cow tip.
They concluded that theoretically a cow
1.45 metres high, if pushed at an angle of
23.4 degrees relative to ground level would
require 2,910 Newtons of force in order to
be displaced from the vertical to the
horizontal.
Translated into English, it would take five
trained athletes in peak physical condition to
tip a cow under ideal conditions — i.e. having
said cow consume a bushel of Quaaludes
washed down by a couple of two-fours to
render Bossie sufficiently catatonic not to
realize or react to what was happening to her.
"I have personally heard of people trying but
failing," notes Ms. Boechler, "because they are
either using too few people or being too loud."
"Most of these 'athletes', adds Ms. Boechler
unnecessarily, "are intoxicated."
So. Reality check time. Cow tipping: fact or
fiction? Could a gaggle of giggling tanked-up
frat boys flip a cow on its side?
Sure, it's possible. Absolutely.
When pigs fly,
at the next opportunity and became Ontario's
highest-profile attorney general in memory
and now an admired chief justice.
Larry Grossman was among those who
failed to win election to Toronto city council,
which must have lofty standards because he
went on to head senior ministries where top
bureaucrats called him the brainiest minister
they ever worked for, and become
Conservative opposition leader.
Even premiers have not been immune from
early rejections. Conservative Leslie Frost lost
"to a Liberal in his first try for the legislature in
1934, but won next time and became premier
from 1949-61 and the unbeatable "Old Man
Ontario."
George Drew failed in his attempt to win a
legislature sea4in 1937, when he was a loner at
odds with the Conservative establishment, but
went on to be premier from 1943-1948.
Why do they keep on running after
rejections?
They have in varying degrees a combination
of believing they have something to offer the
community, wanting to be important, refusing
to take defeat personally — and a lot of pride.
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Earning my lines
Nothing can change the way you feel
about yourself more than s,pmeone
else's perspective.
A television scene during a Sunday night
show recently had a distressed and angry
daughter lashing out at her mother. She
blamed the woman for her misery suggesting
that Mom simply didn't want her daughter to
be happy because the older woman's time was
over. Through sobs the teen spewed a diatribe
that accused her mother of being mean
because she couldn't stand that she was well
on her way to becoming a bitter, dried-up, old
woman.
Now if this isn't a show you watch, let me
describe the 'hag' in question here. Model
thin, with silky, fiery-red hair and creamy skin,
the accusation would seem a little incongruous
to anyone who has never been a parent and
been forced to see themselves through their
kids' eyes. But let me assure that in the
mother's mind, the daughter's words had
tattooed an old woman on her porcelain face.
I went along for years believing that time
really hadn't taken its toll. I was still a pretty
cool mom, I figured. I looked young (in my
mirror anyway), felt hip (a word which right
there dates me significantly) and could still act
foolish (sometimes without even trying). Then
one day I caught 'the look' on my kids' faces
after a remark I made, and aged 15 years. I
knew what that look meant; it was the same
one I, as a teen, had worn many times. It was
capable of not just cutting an unfathomable
gap between generations, but expressed
bemusement and a touch of, could it be, pity.
When that look was first turned on me it
caught me totally by surprise. I didn't want to
be where that stare told me I belonged. I
couldn't have reached that stage. I didn't feel
as if I had. My heart and mind still belonged to
a 16-year-old. How could anyone see anything
else?
That a certain age group did, initially built a
slight resentment in me. I began to watch
adolescents at play with an unenviable envy
and a hint of bitterness. That they seemed to
look on me with sympathy only increased the
rancour. Like Jack Burden, the protagonist in
Robert Penn Warren's, All The King's Men, I
wanted to shout to them that yes, I too used to
cruise the streets. I, used to wear a bikini,
frolic in sand and surf, flirt with boys and
dance and party to the wee hours. I could still
do it if I chose I wanted to tell them. I just
know it probably wouldn't be a good idea - on
so many levels.
Fortunately, such hostility took entirely too
much energy and really wasn't in my makeup.
After all, I was proud of my kids' exuberance
and pleased that they and their friends were
happy to be young.
But more importantly, I was happy not to be.
Like Burden who only discovers satisfaction
when he recogniles one should appreciate the
time of life they're in and let go of who they
were, I know that each phase of life is your
time if you let it be.
While I miss the lack of aches and pains that
accompanies youth, I certainly don't want it
back. Life has brought me to a place where
there is a sureness and wisdom I like. To
paraphrase a well-known saying — with mid-
life has come the serenity to accept what I
can't change, the courage to change what I can
and the wisdom to know the difference.
So, scoff at my sags and wrinkles if you
want, but it doesn't bother me. I earned these
crow's feet and I wear them with pride. And I
can still call up that 16-year-old if I feel like it.
Is it persistence or thicker shins