GOATS for Goats

In modern vernacular, GOAT stands for Greatest Of All Time. Recently, a small town in Utah called Stansbury Park,  got a shout-out for being GOATs for actual goats.

photo attribution below

The story, attributed to Cathy Free for the Washington Post, goes that Jose Garcia and his uncle Bartolo were hauling 50 bleaters from Minnesota to their dairy farm in California when they got caught in a massive snowstorm. The pair began to panic because the goats needed to be milked every 12 hours. If not, their udders would swell up and things would get mighty painful for them.  

After five hours of creep-and-beep, Jose was able to exit the freeway and head for a place where they could milk the goats. Fortune smiled on them when they pulled into the parking lot of Stansbury Park's Tractor Supply Company.

Assistant Manager Lisa Fernandez was closing up the store at 9 p.m. when she was approached by a frantic Jose, who asked if she'd ever milked a goat before.  

Startled, Lisa replied she hadn't, but she was up for it, and also enlisted the help of another store manager, who called employees to see if anyone else could assist. One of them did a post on the local Facebook page, and pretty soon 40 volunteers showed up in the 31-degree weather to milk the goats. When the sheriff pulled into the parking lot to find out what was going on, even he agreed to help. 

The game was on.

Ms. Fernandez gathered buckets and supplies from the store. Many of the volunteers brought their own containers so they could take the milk home. Unsurprisingly, most had never milked a goat before, but all were willing to learn. Jose quickly taught them the proper technique. 

By 11:15, all the goats had been relieved of their burden, and a very happy Jose and his uncle were able to complete the final leg of their journey to California.

So, why am I sharing a story about goat milking in Utah? Because I get so tired of the daily rag sharing stories of mischief and mayhem. It's refreshing to hear a story about real people helping real people. 

I'd like to think most of us are like those folks in Stansbury Park, Utah, not the trolls who pollute social media.

Maybe I'm delusion, but it's my delusion. 

And yes, if the opportunity presented itself, I like to think I'd pony up and milk a goat, too.

Photo attribution: Bernard Lens (II) (died 1725), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons