This morning I posted a story on Facebook that I found buried on a friend’s timeline. I found it funny enough to republish on my timeline.
Cattle Guards
For those of you who have never traveled to the US South West, cattle guards are horizontal steel rails placed at fence openings, in dug-out places in the roads adjacent to highways (sometimes across highways), to prevent cattle from crossing over that area. For some reason the cattle will not step on the “guards,” probably because they fear getting their feet caught between the rails.
A few months ago, President Obama received and was reading a report that there were over 100,000 cattle guards in Colorado.
The Colorado ranchers had protested his proposed changes in grazing policies, so he ordered the Secretary of the Interior to fire half of the “cattle” guards immediately!
Before the Secretary of the Interior could respond and presumably try to straighten President Obama out on the matter, Vice-President Joe Biden, intervened with a request that “before any ‘cattle’ guards were fired, they be given six months of retraining.”
“Times are hard,” said Joe Biden, “it’s only fair to the cattle guards and their families be given six months of retraining!”
Like most stories posted to the internet, someone checked on snopes.com to determine if it true or not. Turns out it is fake!
Actually, I have a word to say about snopes: They take their unofficial job way too seriously.
Many stories were written, I presume, purely as humor, as anecdote to tell at a large gathering to break the ice or to amuse the dignatories.
No doubt people retold them, each time changing details to suit their audience.
Not all stories are written based on truth.
I sometimes wish they could leave amusing anecdotes alone, as legends, and as humor worth repeating.
Some jokes should remain jokes, and not become a snopes investigation.
What are your thoughts?
Creativity & Artwork of Stephen Mitchell 
Like it, loathe it, love it? Leave a message.