The Goat That Saved Me

When I was in third grade, I was "Wendy's sister." This was spoken in hushed tones with reverence and awe. When it was time for our research papers to be presented, the teachers gathered expectantly, as Wendy had done her 3rd grade paper on "The Study of the Brain" and presented it to college students. When I revealed my 3rd grade topic the following year, there was the whoosh of air leaving the room- "The Care and Feeding of the Black Capped Chickadee." I think it is safe to say all college symposiums on the subject were canceled.

When I hit 6th grade, the assignment was to do a "How To" report. We could teach the class how to do anything we wanted. I had heard rumors that in years past, such topics as "How to Ride an Elephant" had been presented, with a real elephant. I was a painfully shy child and these teacher exercises in student humiliation and terror always produced months of angst. How could I get in front of all those faces and speak a word? I was the child who had run home and cried all afternoon when a little boy behind me in the lunch line had kindly and gently pointed out that my slip was showing. The mortification of that event would be nothing compared to the idiotic babbling I was sure to produce for my How To talk. I had learned from my father that when in doubt, be outrageous and so far over the top, people might not notice little insignificant things like you have no idea what you are talking about. So I settled on my speech topic. I went to my mother and asked if she could help with the logistics.
"I think you will need to clear this with the principal," she said.
By now my topic had assumed a life of its own, and despite the horror of talking out loud to the principal, who in those days still had the power to paddle, I marched in to his office and asked politely if I could bring a goat to school.
He asked if the goat was house-trained, which of course it was not. It lived on the farm that I raced to every day after school. Every day I shoveled manure for hours, in ecstasy as I was surrounded by horses, cows, cats, and the goat. One of my jobs at the farm was to milk the goat. Then I would take the goat milk and pour it in a row of endless saucers for the many barn cats and homeless creatures that wandered to the farm. Milking a goat, while not at the level of navigating the mysteries of the brain, is not a totally mindless or simple task. If you do it improperly, instead of the milk coming out the spigot, it is squeezed back into the goat and she then bellows and kicks over the pail. It took a good bit of practice to learn to properly milk a goat, and I had become proudly proficient.
I promised the principal that I would lay papers down in case the goat needed to potty in the school, and we decided that it would be ok if I just brought the goat in the front doors, and had my class come to the entry hallway to watch my speech. That way, should the goat need a quick escape, I could usher it immediately out the doors.
I don't think I was well liked. I am not sure it was because of my personality so much as no one really knew my personality. I was just a formless blob, too frightened to speak to most people. But I related well to animals, and animals liked me. At that point in my life, that was enough.
The day of the speech, Mom picked me up from school and we drove to the farm for the goat. We loaded her in the VW minibus, and I sat in the back seat with her, stroking her neck and telling her what an adventure she was about to have.
The class was already gathered when we arrived. They didn't know why they were in the front hall so all craned necks expectantly as my mom, and me, and the goat hopped out of the car. There was a huge crowd. This was not just my class I could see immediately. As I have mentioned in the past, I have a horrid memory, but I am pretty sure the entire 6th grade was there, and many teachers, and the principal too. It is not every day a goat goes to school.
Instead of laughing at me, or as was more typical, just looking through me, there was a crowd of peers smiling at me, and when I gave my talk and demonstrated how to milk, there were rapturous faces and arms shooting into the air begging me to let them try. I forgot to be frightened in my earnest attempts to turn every student into a competent milkmaid, who would not hurt my friend, the goat.
I got an A+ on my talk. It is one of my favorite memories of school.
So of course I have always had a soft spot for goats. It was with great delight and astonishment that I discovered the greatest miracle of the Christian faith, the atonement of sin, was to be symbolized by a goat. In Leviticus, each year the priests were to gather the people and take two goats. The peoples' sins were symbolically cast upon the goats. One goat was sacrificed (to my great dismay) but the second goat carried the sins and was to be released into the desert- the scape goat. It was a poignant symbol of what Christ demonstrated with one act- sin was so repugnant that the punishment had to be death, but mercy was so strong, that He offered an escape. Christ became our scape-goat.
^" But the goat chosen by lot as the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord to be used for making atonement by sending it into the desert as a scapegoat." Leviticus 16:10