Living, dying, losing, winning

MELONE E-mail: Click here Archive

By MARY JO MELONE

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 13, 2001

Beyond the stands selling funnel cakes, pecan rolls and corn dogs, past the Ferris wheel, and the country fiddle music at Plant City's Strawberry Festival, stood two long white tents. Schoolchildren last week brought their steers and their blue-ribbon dreams to those tents, hoping for the best.

Some dreams went badly. Julia Cates' did.

Her steer, Gasket, "was acting like a butthead" when it came time for her to parade him before the judges, she said.

Gasket placed sixth out of nine in his weight class. "It wasn't great," Julia said, "but it was all right."

Whether the gap in their sizes had anything to do with Gasket's unmanageability, Julia didn't say. She is 17 and weighs 105 pounds. Gasket weighed more than 1,250 pounds.

She said this in an ordinary voice. She had no desire to impress. She can raise a steer, and she can fix trucks. She learned that from her big brother. It is not for nothing that Gasket was named Gasket. Her two previous steers were named Sparkplug and Lugnut.

She also showed them at the Strawberry Festival.

Julia Cates is president of Durant High's 300-member chapter of the Future Farmers of America. Her conversation is peppered with a startling number of "yes ma'ams" and "no ma'ams." She works part time at a Plant City tractor parts store.

When she graduates this spring, Julia intends to go to Hillsborough Community College and then the University of Florida. In a state that cares so little about public education, she wants to be a schoolteacher. In a state that still can't wait to plow under and develop rural corners like Julia's east Hillsborough community of Keysville, she wants to teach agriculture in the public schools.

To talk to Julia, to see those steer under the tents at the Strawberry Festival being washed and groomed and talked to by kids barely old enough to drive, was to be reminded of the parallel universe that exists beyond the consciousness of most of the rest of us in Tampa Bay. This is the universe that existed before the gated subdivisions and the malls were built, where your kids can grow up in unpredictable ways, if you let them.

Julia raised Gasket from the time he was 5 months old. He helped teach her things some adults haven't yet grasped.

"It's a lot of responsibility," Julia said. "You have to feed him, walk him, brush him and bathe him."

She knew how much he liked to eat -- 50 pounds of feed every six days. She knew his favorite snacks: oranges and animal crackers.

She had to watch out for him getting sick. She had to know him the way you know somebody you live with. She all but did. He was the other pet in her household, other than her two dogs and cats.

In short, she had to love him. And she had to let him go.

Gasket was auctioned off at the Strawberry Festival on Friday for $3 per pound. He was bought by the family of Julia's boyfriend, who are strawberry growers. They sent him to the slaughter house. He'll keep them in steaks for a year.

Julia always knew how things would end for Gasket. She accepts that. Still she threw her arms around him and kissed him when it was time to part. And she cried. "It was hard," she said. "I just can't explain."

I don't tell this story to make anybody sad -- the world has plenty of sadness -- or to hear from the people who think Gasket ought not to have been made part of the food chain. Julia said learning about agriculture has taught her more than she ever thought it could, and talking to her I saw what she meant.

She has learned about the long view, about the cycle of life, about taking care of what you care about. She has come to understand the risks of competition and the rigors of business, about making your peace with disappointment.

With an education like that, Julia Cates will make one fine teacher.

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