30 Nov 2021

Good Story (Almost Certainly Untrue)

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Via Vanderleun:

He’d hunted big game for years all over the United States. Hunting was a way of life to him. But, in all those years, he’d never shot a buffalo. He’d put his name in for the lottery that gave out yearly licenses to shoot buffalo, but year after year the winning number had eluded him. As he failed, again and again, his need to add a buffalo, an American bison, to his life bag grew to obsessive proportions. Finally, he could stand it no longer. He determined that he would buy a couple of young buffalo, raise them, and then shoot them. It seemed like a plan.

When the buffalo purchase was completed the question arose about where these buffalo were to be raised. He wasn’t a rich man and the cost to two baby buffalo maxed out his credit cards. The only viable option was to raise them on his front lawn in Moab, Utah. Accordingly, the buffalo were delivered and put out to pasture, or “out to lawn” as the case may be.

Besides grass the lawn also contained, courtesy of his kids, a couple of soccer balls. Shortly after the buffalo became his lawn ornaments, he was out walking among them when one of them discovered a soccer ball and butted it over to him with its nose. Without thinking he kicked it back towards the other buffalo, who passed it to the first buffalo who butted it back to him. An hour or so of passing and kicking the soccer ball between man and buffalo ensued.

When he went out on his lawn the next morning, they were waiting for him. One seemed to be playing midlawn while the other hung back by the water trough which had become some sort of goal. The forward buffalo butted the ball towards him. Without thinking he returned the kick over the head of the forward. No good. With a speed belying its bulk, the defensive buffalo moved quickly and butted it through his legs to the porch. When it bounced off the barbecue, they seemed to do a brief victory prance. The game was afoot.

Day after day, week after week, the strange lawn ritual with the soccer ball went on and on. In truth, he had long since pulled far ahead of the buffalo in goals, but what do buffalo know about keeping score?

In time, however, the hunting season came around. He looked out of his house on the first morning and saw the buffalo waiting for him, the soccer ball in front of the forward, the defensive buffalo pacing slowly back and forth by the water trough. It came to him then that he could never shoot them. It would spoil the season — and the soccer season, in the deserts of Utah, is never really over.

On a hot afternoon soon after, he looked out his window and discovered, much to his delight and his neighbors’ shock, that the two buffalo on his lawn were indeed male and female.

Now it is two years later and he has four buffalo on his lawn. He doesn’t hunt anything anymore. Says he’s lost the taste for it. His old hunting buddies come by every so often and razz him about the buffalo.

“You started with two and couldn’t shoot them,” one said. “Now you got four, and next year you’re gonna have five. What are you going to do then?”

He went to his garage and came back with a basketball.

I hate to quarrel with a great story, but…

1) No serious hunter would consider shooting domestically-raised game animals as a satisfactory form of sport.

2) Buffalo are really really strong, and really really disposed to wander. You couldn’t possible keep two buffalo on your lawn without fencing on a scale adequate to stop a tank.

I don’t have a problem with picturing buffalo playing with a soccer ball. I’ve seen horses playing with balls.

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UPDATE: Gerard van der Leun writes to tell me that he took the above photo himself and got the story from the horse’s mouth. I’ll be….

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4 Feedbacks on "Good Story (Almost Certainly Untrue)"

Gerard vanderleun

What can I say? The photo is mine and I took it on site. I was traveling about Moab with the author Robert Fulghum who lives near the town and who also knew this man. In fact, we pulled over to take the photo and the guy came out and schmooze with us which is how I learned the backstory. How much of what he said was true I don’t know but Fulghum vouched for him. (That said I know that Fulghum is not above “improving” his own stories from time to time.)



Gerard vanderleun

Update: I mentioned this to Fulghum and he tells me:

“Thanks for sharing – like the whole poem.

The rest of the story . . .
The man who owned the buffalo died several years ago.
The property looks abandoned, but there’s still a soccer ball out there.
The buffalo were donated to the Northern Ute tribe for their wild herd,
which is culled every year for buffaloburgers .”



Nori

Animals do play with things.
Higher animals play ball things.

“No serious hunter would consider shooting domestically-raised game animals as a form of sport.”

Oh my. Fanning myself with gusto.
Yes,a small sherry,thank you.



Sheridan

I am from the Moab, Utah area. I knew the owner. He was a famous local character. Former uranium miner. Used to see him and the buffalos all the time. They did became too much trouble eventually, and he donated them to the Injuns, some years before he died.They undoubtedly ended up in several meat freezers after many years of local fame as the soccer playing bison.



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