All We Like Sheep.....

Some of you may realize that Pam and I are friends. We've been friends for nearly twenty years. We are twins, separated at birth by a few years, and with different mothers. Well, we are kindred spirits. And we both like this story, because we so totally relate......to the sheep.

True story, cross my heart.

My grandparents moved to northern Idaho in the 1940's. After buying dozens of partially cleared wooded acres from an old mountain man/homesteader named Dewey, they settled into the pastoral life. Grandma was a teacher who left the rustic cabin each morning, driving her Cadillac (yes, it's funny) to teach in a one room school house, while Grandpa, an electrician by trade, pursued his big dream of raising sheep for the meat and wool. He had quite a flock of pretty, skinny legged, fat-bellied sheep.

Both grandparents were successful in their endeavors. However, Grandma had the superior species to work with, that being vigorous, unruly, spit-wad shooting, braid-dipping, snake in the teacher's desk, irrepressible mountain children. Grandpa? He had sheep.

"Dumb sheep," he was known to mutter in frustration and disgust. He was the most patient man I've ever known, so when I'd see his hair messy, his face red, and his kind eyes squinted into a frown, I knew something was amiss. But he generally didn't let me see him like that, for it passed rather quickly, kind soul that he was.

Grandpa had two pastures: the big meadow and the little meadow. Of course he had to move the sheep back and forth between the two grassy areas for grazing. There was a bell on one of the sheep, and even with my half-deaf ears I could hear the thlunking that it made. I loved the sheep, even the big scary looking ones. Grandpa could get the bell wearer to do whatever he wanted, and the other sheep followed.........most of the time.

Being a Californian on vacation in the rugged, sparsely populated forests of Idaho, the whole sheep thing was a complete paradise to me. Sweet sheep. Gentle, well-groomed Grandpa. Cadillac driving, huckleberry-pie making Grandma. City-slicker California family. And me, who spent each day hiking from the little meadow, to the big meadow with my little sister, just because we could.

Well, as luck would have it, I was there the day Gentle Grandpa let loose the Beast Within, provoked beyond the last straw and over the line by those sheep. Grandma was wondering why Grandpa hadn't come in from his afternoon of moving the sheep back to their sheds. It was suppertime, straight-up six o'clock, and Grandpa never missed supper, not by a single minute. Grandma, my parents, my three siblings, and I sat down at the table and sort of hesitantly let my dad say grace (Grandpa's job), while slyly looking out the huge picture window with peeking eyes for any sign of our stray Gramps.

More than halfway through our quiet nervous meal, we spied Grandpa heading up to the house, red faced, muttering and sputtering to himself, hair wild, clothes dirty (never!), khaki shirt untucked in places (gasp!), with an old, silvered, three foot long piece of two-by-four lumber in his hand. He came into the house after propping the wood in the corner by the front door, washed up, smoothed his hair, tucked in his shirt, and joined the seven of us who had stopped mid-chew to watch this odd, out of place routine that was unfolding before our eyes.

"Well, Pappy? How are the sheep?" asked my often irreverent dad, who began to chew and chuckle.

"DUMB SHEEP!!" Grandpa snarled. "They wouldn't go where I'd herd them! They split up! Half scrambled into the woods, they didn't follow the leader, they all scattered no matter how I'd guide them! The dogs couldn't even get them to do what they were supposed to!"

"Are the sheep in their pens now?" asked a concerned Grandma.

Long pause. Grandpa was chewing. He always chewed his mouthfuls of food twenty times because his 4th grade teacher said it was better for digestion. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty. "Yes."

Before Grandpa could get another forkful up to his mouth prompting another twenty-chew delay, Dad said, "How'd you do it, Pappy? How'd you get them in if they were gunnin' for you?"

"I hit 'em in the head with that two-by-four, that's how!" he growled triumphantly in his deep bass voice. With force he added, "Whack! That got their attention."

Dad laughed uproariously. Mom looked stunned, for her dad was not normally given to such displays of vehemence. Grandma shrugged nonchalantly. My little sister and I stopped chewing, our eyes as wide as they'd go.

"Yup, that got their attention! Dumb sheep!" Grandpa said as the realization of victory slowly began to change his countenance from rage back to Gentle Grandpa. He sold the sheep within the year. Enough was enough.

And to think, Jesus compares us to sheep. When we are idiotic, lost, or just stupidly standing there not getting a clue, a gigantic two-by-four bearing fist seems to come from the sky to give us a WHACK! and we pathetically cry, "Baaaaaa".....for we are dumb sheep.

Sometimes it takes a good Whack-Baaaa! to get us oriented aright, and back to the safety of the Father's pen.

[Grandpa really was fond of those sheep. Please know that the whacking had no ill effects on the sheep. They were no stupider after than they were before. :-)] (This post is dedicated to Iain, here's MY sheep story, and to Pam, who understands and laughs with me when I get whack-baa'd by God.)