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Show ft !$&v. fW by Terl Gomes Until the cows come home I've seen the brochures describing Park City as a glamorous four-season resort. Four-color shots show the finest restaurants, exclusive little shops and spectacular ski runs. Literature often expounds on our heritage of being a rough-and-tumble mining town, a born-again boom town. New projects include a classy glass-and-chrome shopping mall on Main Street and a ski lift that will take enthusiasts from Old Town straight to the ski hill. How, then, do I explain the cow who keeps coming to visit in our front yard? We don't live out in the country where one might expect to see shepherds tending their flocks. We live in the heart of a housing development, Park Meadows to be exact, and for the past two months we have enjoyed(?) nocturnal visits from a brown-and-white four-legged creature larger than a bread box and certainly larger than a dog. Were there some unique angle to marketing Park City as a Cow Town, perhaps I would understand. If the Chamber chose to promote The Devine Bovine and friends, I could be more tolerant. If in steering tourists to town, entertaining steers became important, I would join in the promotion. But I am now in a state of utter, or is it udder, confusion. What do I do with the cow, now? I will confess this happened once before to us in this house, two years ago. After a hot time on the old town we came home, fixed ourselves a little nightcap and got ready to head up to bed. We looked out the front window to discover a cow munching our front lawn. We both saw the cow, honest. We decided the only humane thing to do at midnight was to call Park City's finest, Frank Bell and his blue bellettes, and ask them to round up the critter and send him on his way. I made the call. I must admit after a night on the town the idea of calling the police to lasso the intruder seemed terribly comical. In fact, far more comical than it might seem in the light of morning. So I called, with a case of the uncontrollable giggles. I explained the trespasser, I gave the officer our address and I giggled. A lot. To their credit two officers took me seriously enough to show up at the house. They shone their huge spotlights all over the front yard. And the neighbor's yard and the yard of the neighbors next to them. There was no cow. Only two quasi-adults standing on the front porch with a case of the giggles swearing on Elsie's mother there had been a cow here only minutes earlier. The officers nodded, exchanged knowing looks and drove off into the night. My only consolation came the next morning when I saw a meadow muffin on the lawn with the unmistakable unmistak-able mark of man's shoe squarely in the even rabbits on our porch. I think cows uncovered by snow, who am I to shoo it away? This time around I would die before I would call anyone to come round up The Cow. I can imagine the patrol room if I did. "Hey Frank, those two theatrical loonie tunes in Park Meadows think they have a cow in their yard again. Do you want us to drive out there and check it out?" While it might make fun reading for the police blotter if the report were about someone else unless, of course, they spotted the cow themselves it would not be terribly funny to me. So, here is my dilemma. No one has called or written about or talked on the radio about any sacred cow on the loose in Park Meadows. There is no talk this is all a promotional stunt to build our cow-person image. So how do I get rid of the cow, now? How now, brown cow? Regular readers of this column will recall tales of our killer cats who have lovingly deposited mice, potguts and even rabbits on our porch. I think cows are a little out of their league. And it strikes a vein with me that perhaps this cow is a sign. A symbol that even though we are about to begin The Season and wine and dine international personalities and host world-class events, we need to not take ourselves too seriously. If the cow is content to come by at night and mow the lawn that remains uncovered by snow, who am I to shoo it away? I'll just remind myself when the hype of The Season seems a little thick out there that the important thing is still to watch where you walk. And if it takes a cow to serve as a reminder to all that, how can I complain, now? Indeed. How now, brown cow? |