I was putting together a slideshow of pictures for my daughter’s wedding, photos spanning every chapter of her life since she arrived, all pepper and hot sauce, 24 years ago, and I realized what I probably already knew. I could easily have made the entire slideshow out of pictures of her feeding, working, sorting, brushing and fitting cattle. Nothing inspires a Coleman to pull out a camera like a bovine event. Those pictures faithfully cover every stage of her life, every bump in her road and every haircut of her past. As we were editing them together, she easily recognized each animal by name and/or by number. “Oh, there’s Juanita!” “Remember Grandpa’s 002?” “Man, Obadiah was the ugliest steer we ever had.” Over two decades of cattle, and she pretty much knew them all.
To be clear, we don’t name all our cattle. Names are bestowed upon bulls, 4-H steers, FFA heifers and bottle-fed calves. In all our years of kids and cattle, I don’t think we’ve ever used the same name twice – well, except for Hank and Hank Jr. That was only to be expected.
We’re not so wasteful or profligate with human names. Once a name is adopted into the Coleman family, it gets used up, worn out, recycled and reissued. I guess we don’t like to go around wasting letters or memory space on new ones. Within a mile of us, I have a father-in-law named John, a brother-in-law named John and a nephew named Jon. I’m married to a David – well, sort of anyway – and less than 5 miles away, I have a nephew named David. My son’s middle name is David and, rounding out the family tree, we have a great-nephew named … David.
To add to the fun, my husband and his brother look and sound a whole heck of a lot alike, so they get mistaken for each other all the time. I’ll be in town with Dave, and I swear about half the people we meet call him John. Mostly, he just answers to it. Sometimes I wonder if even he forgets that he isn’t his brother. I, myself only half know who we are talking about at any given time. When friends tell me they saw John at the feed store, I have no idea if they saw Grandpa John, Uncle John, Cousin John or one of the Davids who they just thought was John.
I didn’t have any idea what a mire of confusion I was getting myself into when I married into the family. I mean I didn’t realize it until the actual day I married into the family. The first thing I remember about the most important day of my life is the way David looked at me. Absolutely terrified. Scared out of his wits. It was my father and future father-in-law who looked besotted. They were giddy, happy – smiling at everyone, laughing, shaking hands. I think they couldn’t really believe they were finally getting us off their hands.
A friend of the Colemans officiated, and he had known all the Johns and Davids of the family for a good long time. It is hardly a surprise then that, when it came time for him to join us in matrimony, he up and married me to John Coleman. Just to be clear, I had come to the wedding fully expecting to marry at least one of the Davids. Alarmed, I looked at our two fathers, but they both just beamed on, totally oblivious to the fact that something seismic had just gone awry. Both Johns at the ceremony seemed completely unconcerned that they had just committed bigamy.
I turned to David, but he was no help. He continued to look as if he were headed to the guillotine. If he even realized he was not John, he probably thought he had just been granted the greatest reprieve of his life. Since that fateful day, I’ve always wondered if I’m married to my father-in-law, my brother-in-law or my nephew-in-law. All I know for sure is: For better or for worse, I went home with David A. Coleman that day.
Time has only repeated the joke a hundred times over. Just a few months ago, I went to see a new doctor, a specialist. Apparently, my nephew David is his accountant. The doctor was understandably confused about who exactly I was. He was trying to be polite, but I think he was wondering how I could be married to his accountant when I look old enough to be his mother. That’s because it just so happens I am old enough to be his mother. I, in turn, was trying to convince him that David my nephew is actually not my husband, but is my brother-in-law, John, because that is who I assumed he thought I was married to. As we both became more and more mixed up, I thought maybe he thought I was married to my father-in-law. I mean, I might be – but again, the issue remains murky.
Back to my daughter and the cows. I think there is a lesson to be learned here. I am sure the whole David and John problem can be solved if we just issue everyone eartags. Maybe it’s a subject my niece Michelle and I can bring up with them sometime.
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