The True Story of the Cow that Jumped over the Moon
Transcriptions of interviews with Clement Summers, September 1994
Interviewer: Henry Grimm (NYC)
Clement Summers is a former farmer now living in Queens, New York. He was recently arrested for disorderly conduct after raving about cows flying to the moon. He was sent to Bellevue Hospital for psychiatric examination and my contact, Winston, gave me a call. He knows I’m always on the look out for an unusual story. Little does he know, I’m really on the look out for Everafters, human or bovine. Mr. Summers is a funny old codger with a million stories, but the most unusual of his tales is that of the cow who jumped over the moon. Mom and Dad had told me this particular fairy tale was nothing more than a bedtime story, but they didn’t think that Mother Goose was real, either, and we had her and Puss in Boots up for dinner last weekend. I’m documenting the story but with some skepticism, but then again, who knows? If a cow really did jump over the moon there just might be a fiddle-playing cat and a very fast dish and a spoon out there somewhere. — Henry Grimm, 1994
"You’ve heard that story of the cow that jumped over the moon. Well, that ain’t no nursery rhyme. That there is a true story! I know ‘cause I saw it happen.
It was some time back ‘cause I still had all my teeth. Old Maybelle, my favorite milking cow, was pregnant and one day she lay down and added a new member to the family. It was a beautiful calf and we called her Bess. Looked like the kind of calf that would keep us in milk and cheese for years. Boy, we couldn’t have been more wrong.
Now, when she was little, Bess was already showin’ signs that she wasn’t like the other cows. She didn’t want to spend the whole afternoon grazing. No, she liked to follow me around while I worked on the farm. She especially liked to watch me work on the combine or the thrasher, or even my old pick-up. I’d never seen a cow that took to machines the way she did. Why, one time I came out of the house and that calf had managed to get the hood of the truck open and was staring down at the engine like she was a grease monkey down at the fillin’ station. Well, I thought it was peculiar, but at the same time, I thought it was kind of funny, and Bess wasn’t hurting nobody so I just let her act the way she wanted.
One day I needed to go into town to pick up some seed I’d ordered from the general store. Problem was, I couldn’t get the old truck to start up. It just sputtered and died on me every time I turned the key. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I’m a farmer after all, not Mr. Goodwrench, so I went back into the house to call a friend of mine for a ride. Well, by the time I got back outside I nearly had myself a heart attack. Bess had gotten a ratchet set out of the barn and was giving the old truck a tune-up. She changed the oil, replaced the plugs, filled the antifreeze, and even checked the transmission fluid. When she got into the front seat and started the engine, that old truck sounded like I’d just driven it off the lot. Purred like a kitten, it did!
I wanted to tell everyone about Bess but realized they’d lock me up and throw away the key, so I just kept my mouth shut and tried to pretend it hadn’t happened. Bess made that impossible. Before I knew it she was fixing all kinds of stuff around the farm: the sump-pump, the irrigation system, the windmill. Why she even showed me how to set the clock on the stove. Before I knew it everything on the farm was working better than ever, and that’s when the trouble started.
One night I went into the barn and found her readin’. If I’m lying I’m dying. That cow was readin’! She had a stack of encyclopedias and she was goin’ through each one from A to Z. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out how she got those books out of the house, but later I guessed she’d gotten the dogs to fetch them for her. I’ve seen some smart animals in my day. Why they had a pony at the state fair that could do multiplication by stamping out the numbers with her hoofs, and I even heard of a dog that could sing, but I never seen a 300 pound cow readin’ the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Well, I wasn’t havin’ that kind of nonsense on my farm so I scooped those books up and took ‘em back into the house. I figured that would put an end to it but the next day she was out there readin’ the newspaper. She’d swiped it off the front porch and was tearin’ through the science section when I caught her. Well, a man needs three things in the morning: some fried eggs, a cup of joe, and the paper, so I was mighty angry. So angry I sold Bess to Farmer Davis down in the hollar. Well, three days later here came Davis with Bess. He wanted his money back. Said she was defective. I asked him how a cow could be defective but he didn’t want to explain. What could I do? Now, I did the neighborly thing and gave him his money back but he never got another basket of corn from me.
Well, I put Bess back in the barn and for a long time she didn’t give me no trouble, no how. I thought maybe sellin’ her made her see who the boss was on this farm but I was in for a big surprise. Trouble started brewin’ the night of the big space walk. You remember that, don’t cha’? The good old U.S. of A sent a man to the moon. Well, it was so excitin’ I went out and bought one of those television sets and me and the wife sat and watched it. Boy, that was glorious. Well, we were so caught up watchin’ history being made we didn’t notice that Bess had stuck her head in the window and was watching Neil Armstrong walkin’ on the moon as well.
That night, I heard a terrible racket coming from the barn. I got up, put on my robe, and took my shotgun off the wall. Then I crept out there to see who was on my land. Well, I nearly shot myself when I saw what was doin’. Bess was out there hammerin’ and sawin’ and weldin’ a telescope together. Don’t ask me how she figured out how to use all those tools but she had. I guess I could have put my foot down but how do you argue with a cow? Nothin’ I was gonna to say to her was gonna to change her little cow mind. Before I knew it I had a huge telescope sticking out of the barn window, aimed at the sky.
Every night she was peekin’ into that telescope, starin’ up at the moon. You could almost see her cow brain a-goin’ with ideas, but I had no idea what she was thinking. I got a farm to run and can’t spend my whole day watchin’ some loony cow. It was a big mistake cause one morning I went into the barn and saw she’d built herself some kind of rocket ship. It was made out of wood and old metal but it was a rocket ship, all right. Well, she was already climbing into the cockpit of her ship when I came around the corner, so there was nothin’ I could do to stop her. When she saw me she let out a happy moo that I swear sounded like "wish me luck," in cow talk. Then she closed the hatch and seconds later that old rocket ship blasted into the air and right out the top of my barn.
I ran out into the fields and watched it shoot off into space, wonderin’ how I was gonna’ explain the hole in the barn to the bank. When I couldn’t see the ship anymore I raced back in and peeked into Bess’s telescope and low and behold – there was her rocket landin’ on the moon. This was a mighty powerful telescope and I could see ol’ Bess climb out just like I watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon on my television set a few days before. Why, I even watched her when she jumped once, and I guess cause of the lack of gravity, she went pretty far. I suppose that’s what they mean when they say she jumped over the moon.
Well, I’ve told this story to a few people and they always look at me as if I’ve been out in the sun too long, but I swear it was the truth. Bess built her a rocket and she went into space. Where she is now, I couldn’t tell you but I will tell you this, you got to keep an eye on these cows. You never know when one of them is goin’ to get some idea in her big head. Sometimes, makin’ milk and cheese just ain’t enough for them."
Additional notes: January 1995
Today I received a letter in the mail from Mr. Summers. Inside was a newspaper clipping from Mexico featuring a photograph of a rocket ship, made entirely out of wood, flying over a small town. On the back Mr. Summers wrote the words "The Truth Is Out There!"
