Not many literary openings can rank up there with these: In the beginning; Call me Ismael; It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; There is an old fisherman, Santiago, in Cuba who has gone eighty-four days without a catch; It was a dark and stormy night. But certainly Robert McG. Thomas's opening lines to his obituary of Charles McCartney will stay preserved in the vault: You take a fellow who looks like a goat, travels around with goats, eats with goats, lies down among goats and smells like a goat and it won't be long before people will be calling him the Goat Man.
Hard to imagine there might someday be a successor to Mr. McCartney, but one might be on the way.
Today's WSJ book review covers a book titled Goat Song, by Brad Kessler. There is of course a sub-title that's long enough to tangle the creature up. It nearly leads to the back flap. The book sounds simple enough: man and wife move to Vermont, connect with house and earth, and attempt to make something grow besides money. Goats turn out to be what they start to raise.
Cheese becomes an objective, but commercial sale is an administrative headache and is abandoned. But not the goats. Brad Kessler and his wife start with two adults and two kids. There is no mention in the review what count they might be up to at this point, but from outtakes in the review you certainly get the sense that reproduction is not discouraged.
The whole project started a few years go for the Kesslers. The review doesn't mention how old they are, but their energy level sounds as if there might be a good 20 years ahead of them before some limbs start to feel cranky. An obituary doesn't seem imminent.
However, given what age and goat growth can deliver, it may not surprise anyone if the Kesslers find themselves living in an abandoned Vermont school bus with their herd. After all, Charles McCartney eventually called a bus home with his herd.
It's too bad McG. won't be around to write the sequel.
http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com/
Hard to imagine there might someday be a successor to Mr. McCartney, but one might be on the way.
Today's WSJ book review covers a book titled Goat Song, by Brad Kessler. There is of course a sub-title that's long enough to tangle the creature up. It nearly leads to the back flap. The book sounds simple enough: man and wife move to Vermont, connect with house and earth, and attempt to make something grow besides money. Goats turn out to be what they start to raise.
Cheese becomes an objective, but commercial sale is an administrative headache and is abandoned. But not the goats. Brad Kessler and his wife start with two adults and two kids. There is no mention in the review what count they might be up to at this point, but from outtakes in the review you certainly get the sense that reproduction is not discouraged.
The whole project started a few years go for the Kesslers. The review doesn't mention how old they are, but their energy level sounds as if there might be a good 20 years ahead of them before some limbs start to feel cranky. An obituary doesn't seem imminent.
However, given what age and goat growth can deliver, it may not surprise anyone if the Kesslers find themselves living in an abandoned Vermont school bus with their herd. After all, Charles McCartney eventually called a bus home with his herd.
It's too bad McG. won't be around to write the sequel.
http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com/
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