There are all kinds of sayings that deal with repeating mistakes.  I’ll give you one of my favorites, “screw me once, shame on you.  screw me twice, shame on me.”  I understand this.  At least I believe I do.  This is how my Dad raised me and my brother.  We never got into much trouble for a mistake.  He understood that mistakes are always going to happen.  We would get into horrendous trouble if we made the same mistake twice.  I saw him use this philosophy many times in real life.  My dad worked at a factory for 35 years.  He made many close friends.  I worked there a short time when I was just out of high school.  It would always amaze me at how he dealt with issues that would come up.  I saw one of his friends borrow some money from  him.  It wasn’t a lot of money.  I remember it being something like twenty dollars or so.  Weeks went by and the guy didn’t pay him back.  I asked Dad one day if it bothered him that the guy had never paid him back.  He said it didn’t.  I asked him how this could  be.  He explained to me that he had bought this person for twenty bucks and that the guy would never ask him again for a loan.  He said twenty bucks was a cheap price to pay for a person.  He figured it was the same principle as not making the same mistakes.  He figured it was a mistake to loan the guy money and he wouldn’t make it again.  Plus he would never be put in that awkward position again by that person and if the guy did ask for another loan he would be immediately reminded of how the last one turned out.  Of course this principle wouldn’t work for large sums of money.  Maybe that’s why he never loaned more than twenty bucks. 

         I’vemade the same mistake three times this year already.  Every time I think I’m doing the right thing and it turns out I haven’t.  I know my Dad is up in the cosmos shaking his head.  The mistake I’m making has to do with patience.  Dad died in 2007 and left me in charge of taking care of the cattle for my mother.  I’ve taken care of cattle all my life.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t in charge of making decisions.  He made the decisions.  I carried them out.  Now I make the decisions.  This year I’m in charge of twenty head of first-calf heifers.  They’re new to all this.  First the bull molested them.  They were unhappy about that.  Now they’ve gained weight and are moody.  They don’t like that.  Then one day a needy calf comes oozing out of them and they don’t like that.  I watch this process closely.  Earlier in the year I watched a heifer have a calf.  After a few days it was still very skinny and seemed to be laying around a lot.  I got worried it wasn’t getting any milk or it’s mother wasn’t taking good care of it.  I fought off the  mother and grabbed it.  I carried it to the barn where I put it in a small pen with it’s mother.  I mixed some milk replacer in a big bottle.  For those of you who don’t know you bottle feed a calf just like a human baby.  The bottle is just way bigger.  I fought this little skinny calf for an hour trying to make it suck the bottle.  It bawled.  It bucked.  It kicked.  The mother is over the top of us blowing hot air out of her nostrils on me.  I finally gave up.  The calf was fighting and jumping and I stepped back and cursed it.  I told it to die.  See if I care.  Go ahead.  I hope you suffer you little ungrateful jackass.  The little skinny calf then ran right over to it’s mother and began sucking.  He was getting enough all along.  I was just impatient. 

        About a month later I was driving in the pasture and I come across a little skinny calf laying in the tall grass.  It didn’t look good to me.  Its momma was standing over there just eating hay very nonchalantly.  I walked over to the calf and it didn’t get up.  I rubbed its head and it just stared blankly at me.  I immediately went to the house and got my mother.  She drove me back out there and I loaded the calf in my lap and we sat on the tail gate as she drove us back to the barn.  The momma heifer came running over to me and smelled of the calf and of me and followed us into the pen.  I mixed a bottle for the calf.  I fought the calf.  It bawled and kicked and jumped and refused to take the bottle.  I cursed it.  I told it to die.  I told it I hoped it did die of starvation for being such an ungrateful jackass.  I walked out of the pen and my mother began to laugh.  I turned around to see the calf sucking its momma.  That’s twice.  You think I would have learned something by now.

               Four days ago the last heifer had her calf.  I happened to be close by when it occurred.  I watched the heifer lick it clean.  I came back the following day and the calf was laying down and didn’t seem to be doing very well.  I decided I had learned my lesson and would not mess with it.  The next evening the situation was the same.  The calf looked terribly skinny but I resisted the temptation.  The fourth day I couldn’t find it.  I looked everywhere.  Finally that evening i saw it laying in the shade by the fence.  It’s mother was no where near it.  I couldn’t take it any longer.  I drove over to it and rubbed it’s head.  It just stared at me.  I’m thinking this time I’m right.  I go to pick it up and it starts jumping and bawling.  I have a good grip on it.  It’s putting up a good fight, but I’m not deterred.  I will save this calf.  It gets turned around and its head gets between my legs.  I lock my legs around it’s neck.  I’m determined.  It’s pulling back hard and then it decides to jump into me.  I fall to the ground and the calf runs away with breathtaking speed.  Usain bolt would have never caught this calf.  I’m laying on the ground watching this black streak fly through the pasture.  About that time its mother came trotting up and they met a good distance from me.  She licked it and it immediately went to sucking.  I swear I heard her say to the calf, ” what did the bad man try to do to you sweetheart?”  “Did he touch you?”  That’s three.  Damn!  I’m erring all over the place here.  There’s another saying my Dad had that seems appropriate to my situation.  He used to say, “some people live and learn, some people just live.”  Put me in the second category I guess.