(Reprinted from the June 29, 2001 Suburban News)
From time to time my grandchildren seem to have that special delight in dinosaurs.
I think we have some great animals still on this planet with us. Part of my life saw me as a director at the Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimarron, NM. It was a working ranch as well as a National Scout Camp. We had a large herd of bison. The boss of our herd was a big bull by the name of Geronimo. He weighed in at well over a ton and a half. He was known to be able to travel at speeds up to 35 miles per hour; and for long distances without showing signs of fatigue.
Fences didn’t mean a great deal to him. If he wanted to go to town he just up and led the herd straight through the fence and down the road. We would have to shovel loose grain into pickups and coax him home. Lucky for us the rest of the herd would always follow him.
There was a landing strip in the buffalo pasture and once Geronimo caused an insurance company to pay out money. A ranch board member flew in to visit our operation and left his plane tied down on the strip. He thought it was safe as the herd was out of sight in some far corner of the pasture. It wasn’t long however until Geronimo led them back.
Geronimo stood some six feet tall at this hump and had a horn spread of about three feet. When his back itched he normally would get under a limb of a Western scrub pine and scratch his back. This day he thought the wings of that plane would do the trick even better. Well, he wiggled and wiggled and wires snapped and metal tubes gave way and down came the right wing.
We often refer to bison as buffalo; but a true buffalo is found only in Africa and Asia and has no hump.
Gargantuan bison may seem lazy when observed grazing but anyone who has seen them galloping know that they can be a force equal to a tank.
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