This is a post from the Butch blog on this site.\u00a0 The dog, Butch, and the goat, Nanny, were our pets.<\/p>\n
The Goatnapper<\/p>\n
We went upstate for Christmas in 1970.\u00a0 While we were gone someone moved a mobile home into one of the few wooded areas around us.\u00a0 The house was not visible from the road.<\/p>\n
We returned before the new year began.\u00a0 Our telephone service was an 8 party line.\u00a0 Shortly after midnight on Jan. 1, the phone rang.\u00a0 When we answered, no one was on the line.\u00a0 There were no extensions or cordless phones.\u00a0 We had to go into the hallway to answer the phone.\u00a0 This continued every 5 or 10 minutes for several calls.\u00a0 Phone service in the RGV (Rio Grande Valley) at that time was not good.\u00a0 We began to worry that someone was trying unsuccessfully to call us and being disconnected.\u00a0 Then, this obviously drunk male told us to stop hanging up on him.\u00a0 Ken told him that he had the wrong number.\u00a0 The man hung up, immediately called back, and told Ken to stop answering.\u00a0 We could not take the receiver off the hook as it would disable the other 7 phones.\u00a0 The time between calls increased, but they continued all night.\u00a0 Sleep was impossible.\u00a0 I got up at 6 AM and made coffee.\u00a0 I answered the next call.\u00a0 The guy cussed me out in spades.\u00a0 Ken answered the next time, hung up,\u00a0 and began calling all General Telephone emergency numbers.\u00a0 He was told no one was working on New Year\u2019s Day, therefore, they could do nothing.\u00a0 Ken was persistent. He went from one supervisor to another until they finally decided that he wasn\u2019t going to give up.\u00a0 By 7 AM the manager of General Telephone for South Texas called. He took information about the situation.\u00a0 He began checking.\u00a0 He called back, told us the problem and assured us it would be fixed immediately even though it was a holiday.\u00a0 The new neighbor had accidentally been given our telephone number and our ring while we were upstate.<\/p>\n
A few weeks passed. The children and I came home from school one afternoon.\u00a0 Butch was waiting for us, but there was no goat. We checked with all the neighbors and drove down every country road around us.\u00a0 There was no goat to be found.\u00a0\u00a0 I did not tell the children, but I was fearful someone had stolen Nanny for cabrito.\u00a0 (barbecued kid goat)<\/p>\n
When Ken came home we told him we had checked everywhere except the new neighbor.\u00a0 We watched as he went down the road and disappeared into the wooded area.\u00a0 The children kept watching.\u00a0 Thirty minutes passed.\u00a0 I became mildly worried.\u00a0 Could this man be dangerous?\u00a0 \u00a0An hour passed. I began to seriously worry.\u00a0 Another thirty minutes passed. I decided to alert a neighbor. I told him I was going to check on Ken.\u00a0 If I wasn\u2019t back in 10 minutes the children would call him.\u00a0 I had just gotten my \u201cnerve up\u201d when Ken drove up with Nanny.<\/p>\n
Ken found Nanny in the man\u2019s yard tied to a tree.\u00a0 He walked up to the guy and said, \u201cI am your telephone neighbor, and that is my goat.\u201d\u00a0 He must have had ” counselor\u201d written across his forehead because the guy began to apologize. Then he started telling his sad story.\u00a0 He and his wife were having trouble, and she would not go with him on New Year\u2019s Eve.\u00a0 He went alone, got very drunk, and started calling home.\u00a0 At first, she hung up, thus there was no one on the line when we answered.\u00a0\u00a0 Then she totally ignored the phone as he kept calling.\u00a0 He gave Ken more details than he wanted to know.\u00a0 Ken kept listening as the story got sadder and sadder.<\/p>\n
Ken did not ask if the animals had wandered into his yard or if he had passed by and taken her.\u00a0 He certainly wasn\u2019t looking for her owners.\u00a0 I suspect that he was thinking barbecue, but we will never know.<\/p>\n
The man moved a short time later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is a post from the Butch blog on this site. The dog, Butch, and the goat, Nanny, were our pets. The Goatnapper We went upstate for Christmas in 1970. While we were gone someone moved a mobile home into one of the few wooded areas around us. The house was not visible from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[288,285,286,287],"class_list":["post-968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1955-to-1972","tag-cabrito","tag-goat-napper","tag-pet-goat","tag-phone-service-in-south-texas"],"yoast_head":"\n