Quiz:  What do Bing Crosby and the Andrew Sisters, Roy Rogers, Frankie Laine, Willie Nelson, and Harry Connick, Jr., all have in common?   If you’re old enough to remember the first four on this list, it’s an easy question.   They were all recording artists (yes, even Roy Rogers, the iconic “white hat” cowboy, made records).

But did you know that they all sang a song inspired by an idyllic version of the Old West – and cows.  That’s right:  cows.

It was a song whose opening lyrics anybody who knows anything about the Hollywood version of the “Wild West” can probably recite from memory.  It goes like this

Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above, / Don't fence me in. / Let me ride through the wide open country that I love, / Don't fence me in.

Oh, and don’t tell me that the song is all about cowboys, not cows.  If that’s true, waddya think cowboys are all about?

Growing up in a small town, all my heroes were cowboys.  I always wanted a horse, and still don’t know why my parents didn’t get me one.  It would have been so easy in that time and place.  But in those days kids didn’t get everything they wanted.

Both my grandparents owned farms – on opposite sides of town – one was a ten-minute walk to school, which was a five-minute walk from my house.  They had plow horses and a few cows, but these animals were not confined to a feedlot.  They were put out to pasture in summer and lived in the big red barn in winter.   It wasn’t the open range like we have out here in True Grit country, but all in all it was a pretty nice cow’s life.

Grandma milked cows every morning the old fashioned way – sitting on a stool, filling the pail one squirt at a time.   That was before her hands became so crippled with arthritis, her fingers so grotesquely bent out of shape, she could barely hold onto a glass, let alone milk a cow.

But that was a long time ago.  Two things that happened recently got me to thinking about cows again.  Two cows in particular.  One is named Yvonne.  She lives in Bavaria and has a price on her head.  That’s right, authorities there have granted hunters the right to shoot Yvonne on sight!  It’s a long story, a BBC story to be exact.   You can read all about it – and about German animal rights activists’ attempts to save the poor innocent creature – online at the BBC’s website (“Bull to lure fugitive cow, Yvonne”, August 13, 2011).

Before I learned about Yvonne, however, I encountered Crooked Horn, a cow with a deformity and an attitude.   You can guess the deformity from her name – one horn as bent as my poor grandma’s fingers.   In fact, the first time I ever saw Crooked Horn standing there in the trees beside the road leading to our cabin I thought she only had one horn.   She looks quite comical.  I, for one, didn’t take her seriously.

That’s a good lesson in life:  only a fool makes snap judgments based on first impressions about people.  The same is true of animals.  They’re individuals, too.  Yes, even cows.

It turns out that Crooked Horn is different in more ways than one.  I found that out one morning bright and early when I awoke and opened the bedroom blinds to see what the new day promised.  What I saw in the predawn half-light was…well, what was it?  It took a few seconds to register that these large animals surrounding the cabin were cows, lots of cows.

I quickly dressed and went outside to address the assembled crowd.  I gave the cows an impromptu lesson in bovine civics.  You have the right to graze up here, but I have rights, too.  How about staying, say, 50 yards or so from the cabin?  That was the gist of it.

I didn’t shout or flail, didn’t poke or prod.  Okay, I did end my little speech by clapping my hands and telling them to scram.  Our dog, Judd, would have added the exclamation point if he were still with us, but he’s been gone for almost a year now (that’s a sad story for another time).

I know what you’re thinking.   No fence, no dog and this guys thinks the cows won’t be back!   Is he NUTS?

Well, the cows did come back, but they have not come close to the cabin since that early morning mid-summer encounter.   Believe it or not, they now give the cabin a wide berth.  When they head up the mountain, they take the road until they get to within 50-75 yards of the cabin and then quietly detour into the woods only to re-emerge on the other side where they continue on to another favorite grazing spot.

Except for one:  Crooked Horn.  Crooked Horn doesn’t go quietly.

The word “crooked” brings to mind our politicians in Washington.  They could learn a lot from this clever cow.  Crooked Horn both leads and follows.  She keeps an eye on her calf and on me.  She’s the last one to disappear down the trail.  And before she turns to follow the others, she bellows at me.  Is it an act of defiance?  Is a cow flipping me off?

I’ll never know.  What I do know is that they have kept a reasonable distance from the cabin ever since.   So we seem to have reached a mutually beneficial compromise (too bad our dysfunctional Congress can’t do the same for good of the country).

Bottom line:  I don’t need a fence to keep the cows in (they don’t belong to me) or out (I’d rather step in a cow pie than put up a fence).  Growing up in a small town I was free to roam, explore, climb trees, skin my knees, and, yes, to ride my bike without a helmet.   There were no “fences” either literally or figuratively that limited my little world or my big imagination.  One thing this world definitely doesn’t need is one more fence.

And neither does Crooked Horn.