The Year of the Cow, or, The Hills Get Horned Again

(Bob:) In most of Oriental Asia, it’s the Year of the Tiger. But for the Hill family it’s been the Year of the Cow, with the wily bovines apparently plotting their revenge against us for years of eating steaks, Whoppers and Tillamook Cheeseburgers.

First, last summer, daughter Julia hit a cow while driving a rental car in Botswana. The result: $1,500 of damage to the Toyota Yaris, which was uninsured because the company didn’t offer collision coverage. What happened to the cow is uncertain since it was dark and the cow was still mobile after the accident, running away in the dark, leaving a slight bloodstain and some hide on the fender.

Now the cows of India have struck, almost taking Luana to the next life -- hopefully not as a cow.

It happened at night, in the ancient town of Varanasi, just after we had watched the beautiful evening Hindu prayer services along the Ganges.

Our group was crossing an extremely busy street -- all streets in the town are choked with motorbikes and pedicab and bicycle traffic. I was several steps behind Luana. Suddenly a motorbike rider decided he wouldn’t wait for a bunch of tourists and cut Luana from the herd (so to speak). She screamed and jumped back and then noticed the group of three or four cows running right at her from the opposite direction.
Then she really screamed. The cows brushed right by her, but by the time I reached Luana she was understandingly sobbing, ready to take the next boat down the Ganges to go home.

After it all happened, we could laugh about it -- I was able to do so much earlier than Luana.

But now that I reflect back on it, the whole situation creates all sorts of mental scenarios.

Suppose they had trampled her: Would any court in India have convicted the guilty cow? I think not.

If she had died there, we would have had to import for her funeral pyre along the Ganges a load of mesquite wood -- for that real barbecue taste. We would have had to play the theme from the old television series, “Rawhide” during the burning. Then we would have had to figure a way to get her ashes into a pair of cowboy boots and launch those boots into the river, all while hundreds of pairs of spurs jingled quietly in the background. And -- most difficult of all -- the kids and I would have had to find a steakhouse to hold the wake.

Anyway, an experience of this magnitude really deserves a song, so I composed the following to be sung to the tune of the old Western classic, “Ghost Riders in the Sky.”

Luana Hill went walking one hot and humid night.
In a crosswalk she stopped, purely out of fright.
A mighty herd of red-eyed cows was running toward her side.
If they knock her to the ground, surely she will die.

Chorus:
Yippee Ki Oooh -- Varanasi
Yippee Ki Aaaayy -- Varanasi
The traffic cows of Varanasi

Luana screamed and jumped,
Their hot breath she could feel,
As the cows ran past her,
Going home for their next meal.
The local people shrugged, it’s just India they said.
One minute you are here, the next one you are dead.
Repeat chorus.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Yes, I may have missed my true career calling. I may be moving to Nashville after we return home.