(Note: No animals were harmed in the story that follows. I cannot say the same for the humans.)

Matthew will be 31 in a couple months; his two uncles are in a slightly older demographic. Greg just hit 58 and I’m closing in on 60. The three of us were the main players in what has become a Thanksgiving Day story that will be told for decades to come.

Well, there was one more main player, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

Greg is a gentleman rancher. That means that he makes his living in one way but has a couple hundred acres that he raises cows on as a hobby that also puts a little money in his pocket. He knows quite a lot about cattle, but because he isn’t into it full time he doesn’t always have just the right tool on hand.

After stuffing ourselves with turkey, ham, and Mom’s world-famous cake, we sauntered out to Greg’s pickup to ride over to the pasture to do a little cattlemen work. Specifically our mission was to band a bull calf. If you aren’t familiar with farming or cattle, banding is a process that turns a bull into a steer. Think of it this way: Bull = tough steaks; Steer = tender steaks.

With that I introduce the fourth major player in this story; a two-month old solid black Angus calf. Don’t let the age fool you. He weighed in at about 150 pounds of pure muscle and was armed with four hooves that hit like hammers. Lacking the proper tools to catch and restrain him, we did it the way my grandfather would have back when we were boys. We hemmed the calf into a pen with the intention of catching him with our bare hands, laying him on his side, and holding him down as we did the deed. The calf had different intentions altogether.

It took a while to herd him into the pen and then the real work started. As he tried to run past me I launched the flying tackle that had been the terror of backyard football when I was a lad. I was too slow by forty years and 1/2 second. In my defense, I point out that at least I discovered that I can tumble head over heels without breaking anything that I actually still use.

Matthew is a tall, strong young man with little fear and lots of heart. He grabbed the little monster around the neck for probably a whole second before it threw him into an iron gate. Then it turned and ran directly over Greg, aiming a couple solid kicks to my brother’s ribs and shoulder as he passed by. He stopped at the other end of the pen and waited for us. Though Greg says I imagined it, to me it looked like little Lord Voldemort was actually grinning at us.

The three of us started across that pen, side by side, with set jaws and stern eyes; the Earp brothers headed into the OK Corral. I guess the calf had grown a little too confident because I was able to get close enough to grab an ear. That brought him up short long enough for Matthew to jump on his back. I’m not quite sure how it happened but one moment Matthew was on top of the calf and next he was flat on his back with his legs scissored around its neck. For a second the wild thought hit me that the calf had the perfect opportunity to use his hooves to turn Matthew into a steer. Before the bull figured that out, Greg grabbed his tail and one back leg. I barreled into him from the side just as Matthew twisted his body in a wrestling move that I think I once saw Hulk Hogan use. Down the calf went, with the three of us scrambling to pin down whatever part was closest to us.

Matthew had its head and front legs. I laid across his mid-section and held the hind leg best positioned to do damage. Greg fell across the hindquarters and fumbled in his back pocket for the banding tool to get this job over with.

That’s when we realized that he was a she.

As we hobbled back to the truck, Greg rubbing his shoulder, Matthew looking through the new tear in his jeans at his cut knee, and me brushing filth off my scraped elbow, I suggested that we shoot the thing. Greg seemed to think that profit trumps vengeance, so we climbed slowly into the truck and headed for home.

I’ve always thought Greg to be a wise man, so I asked what he thought the lesson was in what we just experienced. He offered two: “Always have the right tool” and “Plan ahead.” I saw something much deeper.

Sometimes you fight with all your might to get to your goal, taking a beating along the way, only to realize when you achieve it that it wasn’t what you really wanted after all.