Goat-any of various hollow-horned ruminant mammals related to the sheep

that have the backward-curving horns, a short tail, and usually straight hair.
Merriam Webster

Jack Moody gave me a goat. The reason for this generous

gesture was I had a lot of poison ivy growing on the fence
bordering the pasture next to my house. I was living in
Gibsonville, North Carolina at the time. The old adage “goats will
eat anything” is not universally true but this particular animal
seemed to want to live up to that spurious reputation.

My neighbor and landlord, Tommy Nelson, didn’t particularly

care for the idea of the goat being in the pasture with his cattle.
He only had five or six head at the time but he still didn’t want
the goat there. The pasture was about fifteen acres.

The stupid beast, I mean the goat, kept getting out through
breaks in the fence that the cattle were too big to get through.
Tommy (wife’s cousin) told me I had to get rid of the goat.

My father-in-law, Garland Howerton told me that he had eaten

goat and that it wasn’t too unpalatable. He said to cook it over
hardwood though so it would take some of the gamey taste out
and make sure it had not been eating onions. I never did figure
out how I was supposed to do that.

After talking to Garland on several occasions about cooking

the goat and against my then wife’s better judgment I started to
think about who I might convince to help me with this adventure. I
should have known not to follow through with this idea when
neither Garland nor Jack wanted any part of that goat.
 Don’t Eat the Goat

It was fall of 1982 when I came up with the bright idea to have
the goat for supper one Saturday night. Tom Burns and I
discussed this notion for several weeks. I finally convinced him it
was a doable project. After all, don’t they eat goats as a staple in
other countries?

Tom had a cooker he had made from an old 55 gallon drum

and the old grill from the Cutting Board restaurant. It occurred to
me later that we would have been better off going to the Cutting
Board or throwing a couple of pork shoulders on the cooker for
supper. Tom has since concurred.

Elusive Beast

Goat- any of the aforementioned animals characterized by an inherent and

intense stubbornness.

That fateful Saturday arrived with brilliant sunshine and an

eager certainty of success. The original plan was to corner the
beast, leash it, load it onto Tom’s truck and take it to his house to
put down. I’m not sure what misguided thinking motivated two
middle-aged over-weight men to try and capture a young, fleet of
hoof beast like that goat. I declare that loathsome animal knew
something was up. It had a highly refined intuitive sense that
something was afoot. You would have thought two reasonably
smart college graduates could catch a goat. He outsmarted us at
every turn.
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It was time to regroup. Tom and I stood at the fence sipping

coffee pondering the beast. Neither of us said anything. I think we
were both so embarrassed to have been so easily defeated by the
beast that we were afraid too. The beast was peacefully grazing in
the pasture as though nothing had happened. Occasionally he
would look at us and I swear he had a smile on his face.

I don’t think the thought of giving up ever really occurred to

either of us. Less dedicated men would have taken the failure to
capture the beast as a sign from heaven to call it a day… but not
us. Noooo, not us. We were determined to see this hare-brained
scheme through to the bitter and embarrassing end.

As we stood there Plan B began to take form in my mind. This

plan saved several steps of effort and put an end to the
frustration we were experiencing. I quietly walked into the house
and came out with my .22 caliber Remington bolt action rifle.
Walking across the front porch I saw Tom considering me. The
only thing He said to me as I walked up to the fence was, “Can
you do it with one shot?” I seem to recall giving him a scornful
look. Then in response to his question brought the weapon to my
shoulder, sighted, and fired in one smooth motion. That was the
only event that went smoothly that day.

The chase was over.

Ignorance Gone to Seed

Goat- any of the aforementioned mammals characterized by insatiable

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voraciousness.

Tom backed his pickup to the fence and we climbed over and
walked over to the beast. We stood there gazing at it for several
minutes before finally picking it up and carrying it to the fence.
We threw the carcass into the back of the pick up, crawled back
over the fence and got in. Not a word had been spoken since that
fateful shot rang out.

The only comment I recall regarding the events of the past few
minutes was, “good shot.” Nothing more really needed to be
said.

As we drove to Tom’s we talked about the N.C. State vs.

Clemson game that was being televised that afternoon. At that
point I’m not really sure either of us had considered what the next
step would be.

Passing through Swepsonville we finally broached the issue of

how to dress out the goat. We quickly dismissed the idea of doing
it like we would a squirrel, rabbit or catfish… that is nailing it to a
tree. I know for you city folks that idea seems mean and
grotesque but after you’ve cleaned a few of each you’d
understand why it was done that way.

Tom mentioned that he had some rope at this house and we

could hang the beast from one of the steel girder joists that
supported his back porch. He already had the cooker set up back
there and the woodpile was right beside it so it seemed like a
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good idea to perform the feat there.

The Burns spread is a beautiful log ranch style house sitting on

ten acres of mostly wooded land in the heart of Piedmont North
Carolina. As you enter the property there were pastures on either
side and a small garden space. On the left there were some apple
and peach trees that as I recall were less than prolific. We drove
down the driveway to the back of the house.

Tom’s wife, Becky, had already made it clear that she did not
want anything to do with the goat. She did agree to try it but
declared emphatically that would be the extent of her
involvement. I do recall her coming home from grocery shopping
that afternoon with several large bottles of barbecue sauce.
Sadly, that wasn’t going to begin to cover the disaster of that
beast.

Tom backed down the drive right to the porch. I dropped the
tailgate as Tom went for the rope. I drug the carcass across the
bed to the tailgate and stood looking at it as I waited for Tom to
return with the rope. Thinking back I can’t really say I felt any real
regret or remorse for the fate of that goat. Yet I’m not sure I felt
any overwhelming satisfaction either. It was more a reluctant
relief that the capture phase of the plan was over.

Tom returned with the rope and tied the beast’s rear ankles.
He then threw the rope over the beam to me. I snagged it and
began to haul the beast into the air. The animal was a lot heavier
it had looked. Tom came and helped me until we had it high
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 Don’t Eat the Goat

enough to dress out. He held it in place and I tied off the rope.

(I am not going into detail about this process as I am sure you

all know the details about dressing an animal out.)

As I dressed the goat out Tom started the fire. He already had
the wood laid in the fire pit next to the cooker. There was a really
nice blaze going. Had we been of sound mind we could have
made Smores instead of cooking the beast. We would have been
far better off.

Once we had the best cleaned we faced another dilemma (I

know, I know, a real shocker that. Especially since everything else
had proceeded so smoothly). The dilemma was this…the goat
wouldn’t fit the cooker unless we cut it in half. It had to be split
from stem to stern… or in this case nose to tail.

We considered this issue and tossed out an idea or two but

nothing really conclusive. Once again we stood and sipped the
prerequisite cup of coffee. I think we made ol’ Juan Valdez a
wealthy man that day we drank so much coffee.

I sat down on the woodpile watching Tom look back and forth
from the cooker to the goat. Get this picture in your mind. Tom is
a bear of a fellow from the mountains of North Carolina. He stood
about six foot or so and weighed in the neighborhood of three
hundred pounds. He had blond hair and beard. His eyesight
wasn’t very good so he wore coke bottle glasses that magnified
his eyes quite a bit. He was and is one of the smartest men I
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know. North Carolina State University thought so too ‘cause they

gave him a B.S. in mathematics (or maybe they just wanted to
get him gone?). He is my oldest friend, even though he did go to
Moo U. My friend was one of the most gentle and compassionate
men I have known. We are great friends to this day.

About fifteen minutes of silent chagrin passed as I watched my

friend considering the current problem. His calculator-quick mind
was considering and tossing away options at lightning speed. I
could tell this because there was a lot of smoke and all of it
wasn’t coming from the cooker.

Suddenly I saw Tom’s face brighten and he looked at me with a

smile on his face. I wasn’t sure to be happy or worried. Reluctance
to ask what he was thinking was soon overcome by a driving
curiosity to know what was going on in that computer brain of his.
I started to ask what was going on when without saying a word he
headed down the drive toward the stable where he not only kept
horses but his farm equipment. Seeing as how the plan unfolding
before me was Tom’s I sat on the woodpile and waited. After all,
good things come to those who wait right? We should have
started living by that rule at sunrise that day. I know whatever
conclusion he had come to was going to be interesting.

As I sat patiently waiting for the next act in this comedy of

unfortunate events I was startled to hear a familiar sound exuding
from the stable. “Oh, my Lord,” I said out loud, “he is NOT going
to do that!” Sure enough, out of the stable and up the drive came
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my friend with a look of triumph on his face and determination in

his gait. As he strode up the drive he was revving up his
Husqvarna chain saw with its twenty-two inch bar. I was mortified.
Hadn’t we made enough mistakes for two lifetimes? This was
surely fixing to be another.

My cohort walked up to the goat lifting and revving the saw. I

hopped off the woodpile and grabbed a leg of the goat to hold it
steady. As Tom lay to the beast started bucking and kicking like it
had been resurrected. The chisel chain performed its gruesome
task and we soon had the goat cut in half. We were both covered
with minced goat before he was done.

After we laid the halves on the smoker and closed it Tom said,
“a friend told me that’s how they do it in the slaughterhouses.”

Collateral Damage

Goat- any of the aforementioned mammals characterized by chronic

stupidity.

You have already observed from the description of events thus

far that there were many contingencies we had not taken into
consideration. There was one that had the potential of being very
costly financially and socially.

Bobby Crawford owned the property south of Tom. Bobby

operated a dairy farm on said property. The milking barn was
southeast of Tom’s house. The possibility that the odor of the goat
might upset the delicate constitution of the milk cows never came
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within a hundred miles of crossing our minds. I mean after all,

that barn was a good half mile from us.

There was a gentle breeze that morning. We started to dress

out the beast around 9:30 a.m. Not long after that Tom and I
noticed that there was a large part of the heard standing at the
fence bordering the two properties. The animals seemed to be
distressed or agitated. Their quiet, content lowing had changed to
a raucous mooing.

Tom’s description of the events from that point:

“The main memory I have of the event comes from Bobby

Crawford, my then next door neighbor and dairy operator. He said
that his cows would run to the side of his field closest to my
house, stick their noses up in the air and take in a good whiff of
the goat’s aroma and then run to the other side of the pasture
mooing very loudly. This continued for the majority of the
afternoon and the cows got so agitated that his milk production
plummeted for the next two days until they finally settled back
down to normal.”

It is a given in war that collateral damage is inevitable.

Granted that this endeavor had felt like a war but as the gray-
heads say, ”nothing worthwhile ever comes easy.” In this case the
only worthwhile thing was the fellowship with my friend and that
was becoming tenuous as the day progressed.

There is the strong possibility that had we not burned the goat
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we could have prevented the dairy disaster. Of course, not

cooking the goat at all would have been a sure-fire way to prevent
it.

I’m fairly certain that had a football game not been thrown in
the mix the goat would not have burned. North Carolina State
(a.k.a. - Moo U) was playing the Clemson kitty cats that sparkling
fall afternoon. We watched the sluggish first half and I do believe
the sluggish pace rubbed off on us. I recall between the first and
second quarter we went out and stoked the fire like a steam
engine going ninety and turned the goat. Then we retired to the
den for the game.

The next thing I remember was waking to the smell of

something burning and a lot of black smoke coming from the
cooker. We should have known better than to sit in that
comfortable furniture and watch the game- which turned into
watching the back of our eyelids. Every wife or girlfriend will
confirm that Saturday or Sunday football is not complete without
a nap. Being the honorable fellows that we were we honored that
time-tested tradition with great enthusiasm.

We ran outside to find dark black smoke billowing from the

cooker. Opening the cooker we found two blackened cinders.
Seeing as how we had not declared from the beginning we were
preparing Cajun Blackened goat we could not fall back on that
excuse.

I have a very vague remembrance of actually finding a small

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area of the beast that did not meet the requirements of a burnt
sacrifice. We each tried a small bite. Enough said.

Unnatural Disaster

Goat- any of the aforementioned mammals characterized by absolute

inedibility.

That’s the Goat Story. Should you ever get the hare brained
urge to try goat don’t take my word for it. Go ahead and jump on
in there and have a go. Then we’ll read your story.

I can say one thing with absolute certainty. Eating goat will not
be on Tom’s or my Bucket List.

By the way, State beat Clemson 16-13.

Clark
Ashley

3.10.
10

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