BY JOHN OATES
We’re not in a band together, but one fine autumn afternoon Jimny Ibbotson and I collaborated on a very special, albeit nonmusical, project. We got together to shear our Angora goats. I’m sure it was Ibby’s idea; he might say it was mine but he’d be lying. Perhaps the inspiration came during one of his mellow cruises down the road on his way to the Tavern, past our ranch where our two billy goats strutted their stuff thick with a full year’s worth of luxurious wool.
I believe he grabbed me by the arm from his VIP stool at the left end of the Tavern’s bar as I was heading toward the door with a box of takeout. “Hey, we ought to shear those goats of yours!” he shouted into my ear as I tried to push my way through the crowd. He roared at me the way a musician yells at his monitor man when cant hear himself on stage…conviction tinged with an agro type of intensity you’d have to experience to understand.
THE FACT THAT NEITHER OF US KNEW THE FIRST THING ABOUT SHEARING GOATS DIDN’T SEEM TO BE MUCH OF A CONSIDERATION
“Sure, yeah, we ought to do that,” I replied off handedly, more concerned at the time about getting home with a cold burger than shearing goats. Little did I know that he took my response as confirmation that we should get on this project the following day.
The next morning Ibby’s road-weary Saab appeared in our lane and he emerged in a ratty coveralls holding a huge black electric shear and a quart jar of dull golden liquid. The look on his face said “IT’S SHOW TIME!”. We began to walk up to the goat pen like we were on our way from the dressing room to the stage, except the sound of a preshow audience was replaced by barking dogs and a couple of mocking magpies.
Animals have the ability to quickly size up a situation any time humans approach – and the two billys knew some-thing was up. I recall trying to hide my trepidation about what we were about to do with a swagger, but my palms were sweaty clutching a length of rope and a plastic garbage bag. I unhooked the gate and we stepped into the pen.
Now if you’re not familiar with an Angora goat, they stand about 4 feet tall at the shoulder and a sport a magnificient set of gracefully arching horns that span about 3 feet from tip to tip. So there we stood, two bull-headed musicians and two hard-headed goats…the war of the wills had begun.
The fact that neither of us knew the first thing about shearing goals didn’t seem to be much of a consideration. Before my professional music career began, I did have some significant experience as a high school wrestler and somehow knew that l ‘d be drawing on that in the next few seconds. Jimmy and I didn’t really discuss a strategy; we just maneuvered one of the billys into a corner and I let my grappling instinct take over. I swooped in for a double-leg takedown and somehow managed to latch onto some fur and wrapped the rope around his kicking legs, securing it with a sloppy granny knot.
At this point, since Ibby had the shears and I had no clue, I assumed the task of flopping goat, grabbing the huge horns to steady his head. “WHIRRRR.” I heard the motor of the shears ramp up a bit too close to my left ear as Ibby went to work on the thick fleece. It wasn’t long before ragged clumps of white fluff began to fill the air, accompanied by the distinct smell of something electrical burning. We had to pause every few minutes for Jimmy to dip the shears into the jar of oil to cool the motor. But luckily, the goat had now somewhat given in to the fact that we had him by the “short hairs,” so to speak, and he reconciled himself to acquiescing to the clumsy humans.
Meanwhile, the other billy goat was standing watching warily from the corner of the pen.
He knew he was next. Upon Ibby’s signal that he was finished,
I untied the rope and the goat hopped up on all fours, more embarrassed
than angry about his new haircut. One down and one to go. I began gathering the fleece into a plastic trash bag and Jimmy sat on the ground. examining the smoking shears when I heard a shuffling sound from a few feet behind me. There I stood, bent at the waist with my
back to the waiting billy goat.
The snorting sound reached my ears about the same time that Jimmy’s eyes popped open to an alarming size. The image of the classic cartoon character with the bull’s-eye painted on his butt could have come to mind but there wasn’t enough time!
The impact sent me flying into Ibby, who couldn’t hold onto the open jar of motor oil. The two of us somersaulted across the pen, finally coming to a stop in a tangled heap of greasy fleece. Mr. Bill stood stoically a few feet away while we untangled ourselves and quickly inched our way to the safety of the gate.
Once outside we looked at each other and started to laugh hysterically. We’d just been “barnyard tarred and feathered” and I think we both had the same thought: Maybe we ought to stick to song writing.
