Norman Mailer is dead.
Wait, wait. That’s not where I want to start this story. I’ll come back to that, okay?
Let’s start here instead:
As Jami Gertz exclaims in Twister, “We got cows!”.
And when I say “we”, I mean my husband, the cowboy, has a small cattle farm. My involvement with the cows is threefold:
Complaining about the odor of manure when the wind shifts toward the house.- Taking parts of them, neatly wrapped in butcher paper, out of the freezer to thaw. And…
- Ironically naming the ones I can see from the kitchen window.
My naming venture began with Patty Cow. (Hamburger patty, Patty Melt, “Don’t step in the cow patty”). When she had her first calf, he was so little, I named him Slider. Probably would have been funnier if he had been triplets.
When the cowboy got his first “herd”, I named them Wendy, Hardee, Krystal, Arby and, of course, Mickey D.
Once the cowboy started buying Angus cows, the names upgraded accordingly: Morton, Doe, and Ruth’s Chris. (Since his cattle venture is becoming lucrative, I’ve decided the next few will be Cash, Sacred, Holy! and Mad.)
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, the obituary.
Norman Mailer is dead.
No, not the Pulitzer Prize-winning author (though he has been “Naked and Dead” since 2007). The Norman Mailer to which I’m referring was a cow. Or rather, two cows. Greg thought it would be cute to name his first calf after the one Billy Crystal brought home in “City Slickers”. Hence, Norman.
Mailer got his name because once you have a calf named Norman, well, duh. The two writers in the family thought It was the obvious, whimsical choice.
After a happy little cow life grazing in the sun, Norman and Mailer grew up and took a field trip to the slaughterhouse. It was then that our son confessed to punching Mailer dead in the nose one time when the cow kicked him. The cowboy was shocked by the disclosure, and made a snarky comment about children who abuse animals going on to become serial killers.
Kevin responded, “Dad, the cows are now T-bones. Consider what I did as pre-tenderizing.”
Norman Mailer. It’s what’s for dinner.
she said 