Jackie Andrews - Feedlot Calves

 

In 1979, I was standing in the dining room of our western Nebraska farmhouse, and I was crying. I was telling my mom and dad that I was pregnant. I wanted to keep this baby, but I didn't want to bring shame to my family. It was my father who said, "If you want to keep this baby, then you pick up your chin and you look him in the eyes and you move forward. You can't undo the past, and there's never any shame in a newborn baby."

I know that he believed what he said was true, because you could tell it in the way that he cradled his granddaughter on the day she was born.

 

It was my father who brought my daughter to my bedside and he placed her in my arms and he said, "Jackie, here's your daughter and you do the very best you can with her. But no matter how hard you try, you're going to mess her up." [audience laughter] Yeah. He said, "We all do. But if you love her and you let her know how much you love her, she'll forgive you." That was the easy part, was loving this baby. From the minute I held her, I loved her more than I loved life itself. I knew that her and I were going to fight our way through this world. The very first fight we had was just to get out of that hospital.

 

It had been a very difficult birth. My daughter was 11 days in intensive care, and I was 8 days in the hospital with a couple trips to the OR. I made it out before her and I started the ritual of our life. I'd get up in the morning, and I would do chores, and then I would go off to band practice and to school and I would race home after school to see her before I went off to work at Wendy's. At night, I would come home and I would do the chores for the night and start my homework. I would learn to sleep with that little baby right here in the crook of my arm. 

 

It wasn't easy, but I felt like I was keeping my head above water, until that wave of hospital bills hit. And they were enormous. I didn't see any way that I was going to get these bills paid off working at Wendy's. So, I went to my dad and I told him that I thought I was going to need some kind of public assistance. And he said no. He reminded me that my grandmother and my grandfather had nine children in the Depression, and they had never taken a penny from anyone. And he said, “You know, you got one kid, and I think you'll find your way through this.” I really had some doubts about that, because these bills needed to be paid, and that hospital was going to expect money and we didn't have money. I don't just mean that we were poor. I mean that we had decided to live without money, you know? 

 

My dad was the kind of man who loved democracy, and he loved children, and he respected people who made an honest living with their hands. But he hated capitalism, and he distrusted institutions and he was scornful of a wasteful society. So, he had said that we would live on this farm, and everything we needed would come from the farm. And if we couldn't get it from that farm, then we would barter for it. We might fill a freezer with meat or build you something. If we couldn't barter for it and we couldn't grow it, then we would scavenge it. We would see a barn that was falling down, and we would reclaim that wood and pound those nails straight for the next project.

 

I can still see my father standing there with a piece of rotten fruit that we had gotten from a dumpster behind the Jack & Jill grocery store, and he'd say, "Jackie, look at this. 75% of this pear is good, and someone's throwing it away." [audience laughter] Then he'd cut off the bad part, and we'd eat it. He just had this way of looking at the world. And right now, he was trying to look at the world to see a way that we could get those bills paid off before I graduated high school.

 

You see, we had a little more than a year, and then I was going to be out on my own because my family had this thing where it said when a kid graduates high school, they need to leave home, because if you don't push a kid out of a nest, they're never going to learn to fly. I may have a baby, but there weren't going to be any exceptions made for me. I had a little more than a year, and my life was going to be hard, but it's going to be a whole lot harder if I didn't get rid of these hospital bills. That's when my dad spotted a place that was a problem out there at the feedlot, and that problem might be our solution.

 

You see, out in western Nebraska, they take all these beef cattle and they'll bring them in and they feed them in this feedlot and they'll finish them off to market weight. Feedlot specifically for beef cattle, and there's no place for a calf in there. So, if you get a young heifer in that feedlot and she drops a calf, well, that's a problem for that feedlot. And they'll separate that calf off right away, because there's no place to raise it. But it's also a problem for that calf, because if you separate a calf, well, it won't get that first milk from that mother cow. It's called colostrum. It's a real thick milk, and it helps that calf survive. And that calf needs that about half an hour and maybe three, four hours. But outside of that, that calf's going to die if he doesn't get it.

 

But my dad figured if we could get to these calves quickly enough, we might be able to take them, raise them, make some money, pay off those bills. So, him and I went to every single feedlot in western Nebraska. We would talk to these feedlot managers, and we said, "Hey, next time a heifer drops a cow calf, you give us a call. We'll come out and get that calf." And we left. I wasn't sure if they would do this, because the thing about farmers is they like to do the same thing the same way every time. 

 

We got a call about a week later. We got this bottle of colostrum, mixed it up and wrapped it in a towel to keep it warm. I raced out to this feedlot. We got there, and there's this sickly little calf there. We picked it up. I was afraid to put it in the back of the truck. So, I held it in the front of the cab. I remember looking at this little thing, just praying that it was going to make it, because if this little calf died, all my hopes are going to die with it. 

 

We got it home and I set it up in the kitchen. I put down this little heat lamp and I was taking care of this. We got a call for another calf. Went and got that calf. By the time we got a call for the third calf, my mom said, "You better get these cattle out of the kitchen." [audience laughter] So, we moved cattle out to the shed. And then, we just kept getting calls. They just kept calling and calling. We got about 20 calves. Let me tell you, that's a lot of work. Now, luckily, it's summer and we got some time, we're feeding these calves. But it gets to be around August, and it's time to start weaning these calves and put them on feed. And that's a whole new problem, because I got no money to feed these things. 

 

So, we went down to the farmers co-op and the feed store there in Mitchell, Nebraska, and we said, "Look, I got this herd of feeder cattle. You front me some feed till I can get them to market in the spring, pay you off then." And they agreed. I remember bringing that feed home. I didn't have the physical strength to unload that, but I had two younger brothers. They weren't very big, but they were farm boys and they were strong as grown men and they could throw those hundred-pound sacks around and they helped me with those cattle. 

 

By the time that school started again in the fall, these calves were looking good. They were healthy and they were putting on weight. And with every pound that those cattle put on, I could feel that weight just coming off my shoulders. But then, that calendar turned from 1979 to 1980, and it was the beginning of the farm crisis. First thing that happened was the price of cattle just plummeted. I'd listen to those farm reports over the radio and just hope that they'd come back up, and they weren't coming up. Every day, they'd go down lower. Every day, we fed those cattle cost us more. Pretty soon, we just had to bring them in. 

 

The day that we loaded those cattle up for market, it was like a cloud of doom had settled over that farm. We loaded them up, we took them into the sale barn and you run them down these chutes and they weigh them in and you put them in these pens. All the other farmers are getting there early, and they're checking their cattle in and they're getting registered for this sale. After you get registered, you stand around. There's like this big sea of bib overalls and ball caps and everybody drinking coffee. [chuckles] 

 

The farmers are talking. Most of them are talking about the crisis, because this end of Nebraska that I live in, it's not a rich part of Nebraska. Before this farm crisis was over, some of these farmers were going to lose their farms. Some of the farmers that lost their farms were going to take their lives. My dad was talking to the farmers, and he was telling them how we'd gotten these feedlot calves and how we were going to sell them and pay off these hospital bills. These farmers are listening, but they're not saying a lot, because if you've ever been around a Nebraska farmer, they're not really a talkative bunch, okay? [laughs] 

 

And that sale starts, and herd after herd is just coming through this sale ring. The price is so low that they're practically giving these cattle away. I get that feeling in my stomach that it's just tightening, because my fate is marching towards me and my herd comes into that ring. Those farmers started bidding, and then they kept on bidding and they started bidding on those cattle like they were some kind [sobs] of prize breeding stock [laughs] 

 

And that price, it went so far beyond what those cattle were worth, because those farmers were voicing their approval of my ability to try and pull myself up by my bootstraps and pay off these bills. They voiced that approval with wallets that had been emptied in this farm crisis. They didn't give to me from their surplus. They gave to me from their hearts. I walked away with enough money, paid that hospital bill off in full. I paid my dad back for that milk supplement and I paid back the farmers co-op for the feed that they fronted me. I had enough money left over to buy these two baby blue leisure suits with wide lapels for my brothers. [audience laughter]  [audience applause]

 

Couple weeks later, I graduated high school, and my daughter and I took off out of western Nebraska. I went on to earn a college degree. I joined the army, and I was awarded a Bronze Star for my actions in Desert Storm. [audience applause] 

 

I have been able to travel the world, and I have seen magnificent things. But a part of my heart has never left western Nebraska. It will always remain with the farmers who gave me a chance in life. Thank you.