Mason City, Iowa - Hogs That Die - One Eyed Bull - A Bull With A Broken Tool

Farming is an art and best done by people born and raised on a farm.

Not by this Jew from the Bronx, living in a small town where the people there hated me for my loud, aggressive, abrasive, belligerent voice and personality. But it was a fair trade. We had a mutual fuck you too attitude as I didn't think a whole hell of a lot of them either.

In Mason Fucking City, Iowa the Catholics went with the Catholics, the Methodists with the Methodists, and the Jews with the Jews, etc. That was then broken down with the rich going with the rich and the poor going with the poor in each regimen. And never those lines to be crossed. As a result, you were relegated to a very small, terrible social life group.

The whole fucking town had twenty seven Jewish families. Getting loaded was a great way out for me. Teachers Scotch was my addiction of choice. Later I went upscale to Grant's 8 year old scotch or fancy, schmancy Jews Booze also known as J&B Scotch.

My life in MFC, Iowa largely consisted of sitting on a tractor, going up and down rows plowing corn, milking cows, having chickens (those filthy little things), feeding and vaccinating hogs, milking 84 Purebred Holsteins, feeding cattle and losing money. Included was such bullshit as driving a sick bull to Ames only to have the son of a bitch die as we entered the gates of Iowa State College.

That fucking nightmare of an animal not only wasn't worth a fiddler’s fuck as a bull but he had contracted a urinary tract infection that cost me the trucking fee to Ames to try to cure him. He had, incidentally, poked an eye out by falling down in an abandoned well pit.

I was convinced that lousy bull knew how much I hated him and died to spite me. That no good son of a bitch. The Princess always said that I brought out the worst in people so I guess that talent spilled over to Black Angus bulls and the asshole white face purebred bull that contracted a broken tool (sex was out for the high priced, no good son of a bitch).

Being a victim has never been my style. Farming in Iowa's just made me feel downright, fucking stupid for four years, almost to the day. Going to livestock auctions where everyone smelled, as I did, of horse shit and other farm smells, was both boring and annoying. Being on edge while losing my ass was above and beyond just feeling fucking stupid.

The only things that kept me going were my kids, my liquid protection (booze) and the growing white hot bond of anger between the Princess and me. The Princess and I became so pissed off at one another that we got a ton of mileage out of the mutual anger. Additionally, I enjoyed telling the residents of that arm pit of America to suck eggs, fuck off and generally drop dead which allowed me to act like a New Yorker and enjoy myself.

That drove the Princess crazy. Between that JAP making me take a shower before I could come into the house (She complained that I smelled really bad. Sadly it was true.) and me telling my father-in-law to stick his money up his ass, I was at least able to keep my blood boiling day and night and get some enjoyment out of life.

Ah, but the weather!

Iowa is a place for weather masochists. In our first winter there, we never saw the sun from early November into February. 20 below at night 19 above during the day. Regular fucking heat waves. The farmers say that "It makes for a long winter when the snow never leaves the ground."...every winter in Iowa was very long.

Geez, I can't believe that I spent four tortuous long years there.

So there I was, sitting in the hog house on a below zero night in Iowa on the ready in case one of my sows had trouble "coming in" (giving birth). The next thing this Bronx Jew knew, my hand was inside the sow helping extract baby pigs. When it was over, I was sick to my stomach and almost heaved my guts out. Lesson? You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear and making a hog farmer out of a street guy from the Bronx is damn near impossible.

There was the time I bought 100 feeder pigs from a farmer out of Missouri. By then I was certain that I knew what I was doing, and I insisted on a vaccination certificate covering a deadly virus. I did not stop to consider that the "honest Missouri farmer" might be giving me a fucking certificate, covering other pigs, which he did.

The pigs grew to be hogs and then started to die. The rendering works truck came by every day to pick up the dead hogs, and we had to vaccinate the ones that were still alive. Grabbing and holding on to a 100 pound, squealing ugly hog by a hind leg while another guy gave him the shot was some kind of a work out. And I ended up smelling like hog shit. The hogs eventually stopping dying and I lost my ass.

One year I purchased a bunch of Red Duroc pigs to feed out. I fed them on an enclosed concrete slab. No exercise. When they reached 200 pounds a few of them laid down and fucking died. I called the vet who came out to the farm, examined the dead hogs and told me that the hogs had died of heart attacks brought on by too much fat and no exercise. The pay off was when I sold the God Damn hogs to Hormel in Austin and was docked because the hogs were too fat.

And when there was wet hay or wet corn to be sold those Honest Iowa farmers sought out this dumb fucking Bronx Jew I was the mullet (a fish that's easy to catch) with my mouth wide open ready to be reeled in. And reel me in they did, in all of my not so glorious stupidity. Wet corn and wet hay results in rotting corn and hay. The farmers stacked the deck by putting dry corn and dry hay on the top.

When my four year sentence of living in River City was up, I happily left Iowa to the cheers of all who knew me. Nothing had changed in four years. What those Iowans saw was what they got, from the beginning to the end of my stay.