I promised weeks ago to tell the story of how Captain and I met through 4-H and started dating. With our anniversary coming up next week, now is probably a good time to do that.
When I was in 4-H, I was part of the dairy judging team. Not because I wanted to be or had any great aptitude for it, I was just old enough to drive Baby Brother to the practices because he DID like it and DID have an aptitude for it. Seriously, I was just along for the ride and the socialization.
So for those who aren’t familiar with dairy judging practices, it is where a group of kids get together in someone's barn and look at several groups of four dairy cows and decide which one is best, which one is worst, and where the two other ones fall in the middle. I didn’t mind that part so much because the top and bottom cows were usually fairly obvious, and the middle two...well that could go either way.
Being Miss No Aptitude, I judged the cows like I judged a lot of things back in that era...on the cute factor. Who had the cutest spot pattern, who had a funky marking on their hip...stuff like that. This is most likely why I never made the official judging team like Baby Brother and Captain did.
Well, that and the fact that I truly sucked at giving oral reasons to the coach. Judging didn’t just consist of picking out the order best-to-worst. You also had to be able to defend your reasons for making those choices, and “she had cuter spots” just didn’t cut it for a good reason. I B.S’ed my way through giving oral reasons to the coach most of the time, but neither one of us really ever had high expectations for me on that front.
So I was at practice one night and my eye happened to catch the cute factor. Not in the cows, but in this guy who was there. He’d been part of the dairy judging team and practices for years, but up to that night, he hadn’t blipped on my radar.
Hmmm...must make conversation with him! So I casually (I hope) moseyed on over his way and heard him talking to his friend about a party. When I asked where the party was, I got an impish grin, an eye twinkle, and the response of “Wherever I am!” So modest is my man.
I grasped the opportunity to point out that Elgin Cheese Days was that coming weekend and I would be there solo...why didn’t he just cruise on over and join the fun. So brazen I was!
He took me up on it, but the poor friend he brought with him ended up drinking by himself on the steps of the a local church while we were off...somewhere else.
That was all it took, and two weeks later in July 1985, we had our first official date. Somehow farming and cows have always been a part of our relationship from that first flirty episode at dairy judging to date nights riding in tractors to having a cow and bull on our wedding cake instead of the traditional bride and groom to taking our honeymoon at the National FFA convention when he received the American Farmer Degree. But it all started in a barn with 4-H dairy judging.
Oh...the best part of the story. Almost forgot. After I bluffed my way through the oral reasons that night at practice with phrases like: More youthful udder, more angular at the withers, higher and wider in the thurls (I don’t even know what that is), and more strength in the pasterns, the coach looked me straight in the eye and said it was the best set of reasons I’d ever done, and he was proud of me. I was on cloud nine with that for about five minutes...which is when I found out that I had judged the wrong four cows...epic fail. But--hey--I judged the right guy, didn't I?!?!
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