When the Cows Come Home

This idiomatic expression in English refers humorously to an argument without a conclusion, something that will last not just an extended period but potentially forever.

The same phrase has a concrete meaning in Romanian and brings to mind a childhood experience from long ago and a shepherd named Nae whom everyone called Nea Nae, a form of respect, like an uncle.

Nea Nae was the village drunk in my maternal grandparents’ village. He was also the cows’ shepherd. The village had about 10,000 inhabitants with a population density of 215 people per square kilometer. Homes were clustered close to each other with enough yards for an outhouse and a garden.

The village, now called a ‘commune’ (interesting choice of words), was surrounded by pastures and co-operative plots of land, owned by the Communist Party government, and a few individual parcels on which villagers planted crops and shared the harvest with the state (not willingly).

Most homes had a milking cow, chicken, rabbits, ducks, and a pig, with a menagerie of outdoor cats to keep rodents under control. And this is where Nea Nae came into play. The villagers hired him to take care of the cows, sort of.

Every morning, Nea Nae followed the large herd of cows coming out one by one from each yard to the grazing pasture outside of the village, rotating the pastures in various ends to keep the grass growing. Before the sun set, he followed them back to the village, and one by one, the cows entered their respective yards, knowing exactly where their homes were. So much for the bad publicity that cows are dumb. They were smart enough to follow Nea Nae’s directions to the pastures and back home to the right yard. Each home was fenced by tall wood fences for privacy, but the gates were opened by the owners, and the cows miraculously knew which yard was theirs.

‘When the cows came home’ was a real spectacle to watch. Sitting on my bench perch facing the unpaved road, I witnessed the cows return on my grandparents “ulita” (road) many evenings. The cows never fell in the deep ditches dug up for irrigation and rain drainage on the side of the road. They slowly moved on to their destinations. The cow patties left behind were like land mines to avoid at all costs when we played.

Nea Nae, a kind and gentle soul with a well-tanned and ruddy complexion, was already tipsy by then. He went home to eat and then to the “circiuma” in the middle of the village to finish off drinking with his friends. They drowned their sorrows with him daily.

The villagers drank the cheap alcohol religiously provided by the state to keep the masses compliant and working menial and difficult jobs for subsistence level pay.

Nea Nae used to say that he was never going to die in his own bed because he was seldom in it. He slept on the floor partly under the bed most of the time, after he fell off from the very narrow twin bed he owned.

He used to be married in his younger years, but his wife had left him on account of his alcoholism. They passed each other in the village like strangers who only say hello. His only child, a daughter, checked on him from time to time. But the village did a much better job of keeping up with Nea Nae because he was their cows’ caretaker and cows were important for survival.

On the few times when he ran out of money and was temporarily sober, I listened in awe to the petite Nea Nae spinning fairy tales to his neighbors who listened to him mesmerized as well even though they knew none of them actually happened. He was such a gifted storyteller who missed his calling!