We preconditioned another bunch of calves today, and later did some sorting getting the red calves from black cows out of the bunch. These will be sold with our other red calves. Anyway, I sorted cattle right up until four o'clock, and then had to get ready to go to Valentine to a meeting that started at 5:30. I hurriedly unsaddled, showered and shaved, and drove pretty fast. It is an hour drive to Valentine and I'd only allowed myself fifty minutes.
Halfway to Cody, as I am driving east I see a pedestrian on the north side of the road. He is talking on his cell phone and frantically trying to flag me down, even though it looks like he is hitch-hiking the other direction. I get slowed down and turn around and drive back to see what sort of problem he has encountered.
The young guy is more than a little inebriated. He jumps in the pickup with me, and pours out his sad story. It seems that he and his pregnant girlfriend, along with his girlfriend's sister and her boyfriend, had come up to this area to attend the funeral of the girls' grandfather. The other three remained sober throughout the day, but the 24-year-old boy in with me has been inbibing right along. He has gotten drunk and obnoxious, and his girlfriend's sister (who can't stand this boy anyway), has lowered the boom and kicked the young man out on the highway, in the middle of nowhere.
Our subject is beside himself with remorse. It is drawing close to dusk, and he has been abandoned without even a jacket. We drive on to Valentine, looking at each vehicle we meet, with him hoping it is his traveling companions coming back to pick him up. No luck. Alas, as we arrive in Valentine, we see their car parked at the Bunkhouse Cafe, where they had stopped for the pregnant girlfriend to visit a restroom. The girlfriend was slightly happy to see the father of her child-to-be, but the others were disgusted to see me drive up with the Obnoxious One riding in the passenger seat.
It took a lot of talking on my part, and a firm promise from the Obnoxious One, that he would not say a single word all the rest of the way back to the Omaha vicinity where they all live. If he breaks that promise, they made their own promise to once again unload him wherever destiny called. It will be interesting to see if the young man shapes up. He has potential, but it was hidden pretty deep this evening. :???:
I was nearly thirty minutes late to my meeting, but the others carried on quite well without me.
