"Cattle Rustling is Not Dead in Missouri."

The Powers That Be had decided that thousands of us should be drafted, provided with a modicum of training, issued a firearm, and sent off to a sh*thole 8,000 miles away.  

To be shot at.  

Shot at by a guy who'd probably been hanging in a tree, just waiting for me to get off the plane.  

I was playing pool professionally by this time.  But "playing pool" was an insufficient reason to get the Army off my butt.  Only the "2-A" Deferment would save me.  That's where you keep going to school and the Army leaves you alone.

For awhile.

They gave me 5 and 1/2 years to graduate.  But in my case, that would require me actually attending class and studying.  I didn't.  Do either.  So I got kicked out of a succession of colleges for failing to do what I should have done.  To the extent I was in a last-ditch little parochial school in the Midwest.  I had to make good there or my deferment would be withdrawn and I'd be dressed in green and living (or dying) in a far-off land.

This new school demanded all us students go to chapel.  Every Thursday morning we were all to present ourselves at their church and pretend to be interested.  Oh, and sign-in.  Because if you missed 3 of these little chapel attendances in a semester, you were shown the door.  I, not wishing to be told what to do by anyone, missed the first two Thursdays.  Me and a couple of buds, together with a case of Buds, were all lamenting our actions and our fate on one particular Wednesday evening.  Trying to come up with a plan, through the haze of mass quantities of beer, to avoid attending chapel that next morning.  And therein lay the parts and pieces of this little drama...

Our frat house was located right across the road from a cattle farm.  Ah hah!  We would sneak across the road, we thought, grab us a cow, and lead Old Bossy right into the chapel.  And then we'd tie her up to the organ.  So when everybody arrived the next morning she'd be there, mooing away.  They'd have to cancel chapel until they could do away with the cow and we'd get away with another absense.

Good plan, yes?  Exceppppt, Old Bossy had eaten red clover.  Red clover is poisonous to cattle.  Old bossy up and died.  Tits up, she was,right there in front of God and the organ and everybody.  

Welllll!  That didn't work according to plan.  They had to bring in a butcher, and a chain saw, and cut Bossy into several pieces.  Blood everywhere.  They had to close the chapel for weeks.  They even had to change the carpet.  And the cops by this time had already figured out who were the culprits.  One of my buds had spilled the beans and we were all hooked up and taken to the hoosegow.  By late afternoon I'd bailed myself out and the school had sent me packing.  I holed up with some buddies for a couple of days until I worked up the courage to go home.  And as I arrived, my Dad was watching the evening news.

Walter Cronkite was the anchor of the CBS Evening News.  As I walked into my folks' home, Walter ended his telecast in his usual way.  He'd select some little vignette of life across America and fit it in at the end.  And this day was no different.  He started with, "Cattle rustling is not dead in Missouri."  He went on to describe our little escapade and just how stupid we all were.  And how lucky we weren't charged with a felony.  For rustling cows is, in fact, a felony in Missouri.  He ended with his famous, "And that's the way it is..."  

I looked at my Dad.  He looked at me.  He was not pleased.  Nor was my Mother.  My 2-S Deferment was yanked and I wound up working at an auto parts store until the Gubmint called.  

I was fitted for fatigues, sent to one of our three Basic Training Units, and off I went to protect America.  The charges were dropped when I enlisted, thankfully.  So this little story should remind you just how lucky you all were you didn't have a kid like me.  In fact, I'm lucky I didn't have a kid like me!  But damn, it sure was fun!

Epilogue:  My Army career was exemplary and mucho praise was heaped upon me.  Lots of medals and certificates of accomplishment.  So much so my little college let me back in.  I took the 44 semester hours I needed in 12 months, all straight "A's," and finally got my ticket to ride.  

I learned my lesson.  Thankfully.  And the rest, as they say, is history...