When 10-year-old Doug Crandell joined the 4-H program, he was supposed to learn about raising, feeding, and selling a cow. What he wound up learning was something else entirely.

“I wanted to be a hog man, like my father,” he said. “But I knew pretty early on that you couldn’t have these animals forever.”

From producer Shaina Shealy, this is the story of a boy and his cow, Speckles.

Featuring Doug Crandell.

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CREDITS

Host: Nate Hegyi

Reported and produced by Shaina Shealy

Mixed and edited by Taylor Quimby, with editing help from Marina Henke.

Our staff includes Marina Henke, Felix Poon, Jessica Hunt, and Justine Paradis

Special thanks to our friends over at Snap Judgment and recordists Mahzerati Mahz and Bryan Caruso.

Executive producer: Taylor Quimby

Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio

Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

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Audio Transcript

Note: Episodes of Outside/In are made as pieces of audio, and some context and nuance may be lost on the page. Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors.

Nate Hegyi: From NHPR, This is Outside/In, a show where curiosity and the natural world collide. I’m Nate Hegyi.

[CHICKENS CLUCKING]...

DOUG: Hey, sweeties, come here…. [DOUG FEEDING CHICKS]...

Nate Hegyi: Doug Crandell is a farmer. Sort of.

Doug Crandell: They're a little excited having visitors [FADE UNDER]....

His farm in Douglassville, Georgia… it’s more like a boarding house for rescued animals.

MUX - Greyleaf Willow, Blue Dot Sessions

Over the years he’s tended sheep, goats, cattle, racoons..

Doug Crandell: really anything that shows up, we're gonna take care of. So we've had, uh, 12 rescue dogs .. We've had a goose show up, we’ve had a rooster show up that wasn’t ours.

Nate Hegyi: They don’t kill any of these animals. They care for them until death, and then bury them around the property.

Doug Crandell: we have several pet cemeteries around the property… that's nice to visit and you know and to remember... And to be quite honest, it's a privilege to be able to provide homes and safe places for the animals that we just consider part of our family.

MUX SWELL AND FADE

Nate Hegyi: As you might expect, there’s not a lot of money in rescuing animals like this – and by profession, Doug is a writer.

But there was a time, when he was just 10 years old, that Doug aspired to be a more traditional brand of farmer.

Doug Crandell: I wanted to be a farmer deeply. I wanted to be a hog man, like my father. But I knew pretty early on that you couldn’t… you couldn’t have these animals forever.

MUX SWELL - Our Digital Compass, Blue Dot Sessions

Today on Outside/In, Producer Shaina Shealy has the story of a boy and his cow.

Doug Crandell: I recognized him and he recognized me. I was rehearsing in my brain how he would grow into this grand champion.

It’s a story about wonder, about grief… and how the very thing that was supposed to teach Doug how to be a farmer… taught him something else entirely.

Doug Crandell: I knew from 4H meetings, from my family, from the community that what won was muscle definition and physical prowess. Um, no one was judging cattle's souls.

Stay with us.

MUX SWELL AND FADE

________________________________________

Shaina Shealy: This is Outside/In. I’m Shaina Shealy.

Maybe you have a memory from when you were a kid – the kind of thing that shapes a person – that you think about for the rest of your life.

This is one of those memories.

Doug Crandell: I grew up in the first electrically lighted city in the world, Wabash Indiana. On a pig farm.

MUX - TwoPound, Blue Dot Sessions

This is Doug Crandell. He’s an author, storyteller, and hobby farmer.

Doug Crandell: hate to brag, but Wabash County is also the home of Crystal Gail.

Doug grew up the second youngest of five kids.

His parents were Dan and Dorris – his siblings were Derrick, Dina, Darren, and Dana.

Doug was the black sheep – or maybe just the quiet sheep of the family.

Doug Crandell: I think I was a sensitive kid. I mean, I’ve gotten comfortable with the fact that I cried a lot as a kid.

He was bullied a lot. Kids called him names because of his crooked teeth.

Doug Crandell: I read a lot…I didn’t like comics. I didn’t like any of that superhero stuff… I loved to keep a journal… And checked out lots of books, we didn’t have many books in our house. We had some encyclopedias that my aunt had given us, but we were too busy.

MUX SWELL AND FADE

Doug’s parents were what he calls “cash renters.” They didn’t own the farm they worked every day – or the equipment, or the animals. They farmed in exchange for housing, and a small percentage of the profits. To get by, they worked second jobs in fast food and factories.

Doug Crandell: And so in some ways, you carry around a little bit of shame for that. It’s as if your family’s not working hard enough.

But they did work hard.

Doug and his siblings were up before dawn every morning, doing chores. When he was just seven years old, he cut two fingers off his right hand in an accident and had to have them sewn back on.

Doug Crandell: And so, I guess as a kid I had a lot of responsibility.

Doug especially was fond of the misfit animals – the runt pigs that would otherwise be euthanized. He convinced his grandfather to let him take care of them.

Doug Crandell: And I raised those little pigs. Some of them were blind, some of them couldn’t hear.

Doug would feed and fawn over them – and always, his family would remind him:

Doug Crandell: You’re not to get close to them, treat them like pets. And that was always tension for me. I couldn’t do that the way my siblings or parents could.

MUX SWELL - Our Digital Compass, Blue Dot Sessions

This was a big deal, because – modest as their rented farm may have been – they were a farming family. Doug’s older siblings were each learning to take care of bigger animals – not just runts – and on a foggy autumn morning in 1978, it was Doug’s turn.

His dad took him and his siblings to Reynold’s Farm: a place that actually owned their animals.

Doug Crandell: You have the smell of damp hay, We could hear the cattle mooing. Red painted barns, a silo that gleamed. The farm was absolutely gorgeous.

Shaina Shealy: Through the farm house windows, Doug could see trophies lining the shelves.

MUX FADE

Doug Crandell: : Big purple ribbons. The purple ribbons were usually grand champion, reserve champion… so we knew they were a family that were competing and winning a lot in 4H.

Shaina Shealy: Mr. Reynolds, champion cattle farmer, approached the family.

Doug Crandell: I was talking a lot and my brother Darren had a technique that he just kind of put his hand on my shoulder, which meant I probably should quit talking. My father didn’t talk a lot.

Shaina Shealy: Mr Reynolds introduced himself, and walked Doug and his family through his pastures. They came up over a knoll, and Mr. Reynolds stopped in front of a paddock of small calves.

Doug Crandell: And Mr. Reynolds stops and said, these cattle would make a great 4H project.

MUX - Hutter, Blue Dot Sessions

Shaina Shealy: It was Doug's 1st year in 4-H, one of the largest youth groups in the US, with 6 million participants.

Doug Crandell: I was always around 4-H, probably as an infant.

Doug’s mom, Doris - she led one of the groups for littler kids.

Doug Crandell: My mother was the leader of the 4-leaf clovers.

4-H has science and civics programs for kids all over the country, but one of the things it’s known for is its farming programs. For Doug: –

Doug Crandell: The whole idea of being in four H is to learn how much money you spend on feed, what that's gonna look like in terms of that animal maturing…

Shaina Shealy: Doug had signed up to raise a calf for 10 months. To take notes on protein and weight. To learn how to care for an animal – and then to sell it, like his dad.

Doug Crandell: I felt, nauseous and certainly, uh, a type of anxious joy to be able to do this thing. It was a rite of passage.

MUX SWELL AND FADE

At the end of those 10 months, Doug and his 4H comrades would take their cattle to the county fair to show them off to a judge. He’d rate the cattle on things like weight to fat ratio... hide and stature.

Doug Crandell: There's grand champion, reserve champion, a blue ribbon, a red ribbon, and then yellow ribbons were just participation.

Shaina Shealy: Doug's older brothers had done all this before – they’d purchased their own calves to raise - but they’d never won ribbons for their animals at the fair.

SO - their animals had always been auctioned off after the show.

MUX - Bare Elm, Blue Dot Sessions

Bound for the slaughterhouse.

But Doug - he was dead set on raising an animal to keep. One he could care for beyond the 10 month 4H experiment.

Doug knew that ribbon-winning animals rarely got sent away. So all he needed was a ribbon-winner.

MUX SWELL

He was playing this all out in his head as Mr. Reynolds showed off the young calves he had to sell.

Doug Crandell: The breed was a mix of Hereford and Charlet and some Angus.

Shaina Shealy: Doug scanned the animals, and one of them craned his little head in Doug’s direction.

MUX FADE

Doug Crandell: I wouldn't say that our eyes had locked or anything goofy like that. But I think I recognized him, he recognized me.

MUX - Beignet Interlude, Blue Dot Sessions

Doug Crandell: Those eyes are something that can kind of take your breath away

Shaina Shealy: Doug couldn’t look away from the calf.

Doug Crandell: He was white with these orangeish speckles

He had fuzzy ears and little bump on his forehead

Doug Crandell: That was awfully cute and it had a swirl on it, kind of a cowlick, if you will.

But the orange-speckled calf was a little ungainly. His front legs were shorter than his back ones.

Doug Crandell: My brother Darren said, he's not gonna grow into his legs. He's not gonna gain enough weight. His frame is too slight.

MUX FADES

Shaina Shealy: But little Doug wouldn’t hear it. The stumpy calf was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

He decided to call him Speckles.

Doug Crandell: Mr. Reynolds had stepped back. My dad had stepped back…. And my father simply said, it's his money and it's his decision.

Shaina Shealy: Doug had a bank book in his pocket. He wrote a check for $75, money he’d earned from chores. And he shook Mr. Reynold’s hand.

Doug Crandell: The grip was strong and I felt like a man. A farmer. And I was rehearsing in my brain, how he would grow into this grand champion.

MUX - Bundt, Blue Dot Sessions

Shaina Shealy: For the next week, Doug waited for Speckles to be delivered. He patched aluminum buckets for the calf to eat from, he oiled an old halter, he built a cozy hideaway for the calf.

Doug Crandell: I added more bales of straw to insulate the plywood that was around him. And then I made sure that there was a light bulb right above where he would be…

Shaina Shealy: When the Reynolds Farm truck finally pulled up, it was dark. A farm-hand opened the trailer.

Doug Crandell: And I just saw these eyes a little bit in the dark. A little flash of a wet nose. And he stepped forward. I knew to make some clicking sounds.. [makes clicking sounds] And that was the first time he kind of nudged me.

MUX FADES

Shaina Shealy: The Reynolds had sent some feed with speckles.

Doug Crandell: This kind of what we would call fancy feed.

Shaina Shealy: But Doug’s family made their own feed to save money. So while Speckles chewed away the last of the fancy stuff, Doug filled his trough with a house mix of corn and molasses.

Doug Crandell: And he began eating, and then was comfortable enough to close his eyes and start chewing cud.

MUX - True Shape, Blue Dot Sessions

Shaina Shealy: Doug laid his head next to speckles on the straw, and he drifted off.

Doug Crandell: So I fell asleep next to speckles, and it was dreamy - that’s the only way I can describe it. He was mine, it was real, and he was there with me.

MUX SWELL AND FADE

From then on, he spent his free time with Speckles - pampering him…

Doug Crandell: Trimming hooves, cleaning ears, brushing the hide,

Shaina Shealy: ... feeding him pretzels he'd stolen from his sisters

Doug Crandell: And Toast, I loved feeding him toast…

MUX - Pigpaddle Creek, Blue Dot Sessions

Shaina Shealy: Doug parted his hair, tried out different hairstyles on Speckles..

Doug Crandell: I was grooming his pole, this top of a cow's head that's kind of special little cranium… using the pomade that's really supposed to be used to make their back muscles look better by combing their fur up.

And while grooming is something judges would look for at the County Fair… a lot of Doug’s care wasn’t exactly standard for the 4H program.

Like, Doug spoke to Speckles constantly. In the evenings, Doug would read him books and stories.

Doug Crandell: Bios of, Daniel Boone and, old Yeller and things like that…. I had started reading Bridge to Terabithia and that book particularly sticks out in my mind and memory of Speckles because we read it several times together.

MUX SWELL AND FADE

One afternoon, this was probably February, I can remember getting off the bus – it’s cold and rainy. And by this time, Speckles can either hear the school bus, know it by the time of day, smell me – I don’t know, but he would bawl, you know, he would moo.

And this day I’d been picked on quite a bit. There was a kid who liked to call me “snaggle-tooth” in front of everybody, he was older kid and I was deeply scared of him.

I mean I do have to give him credit, he also called me “Stonehenge Mouth.” And at that time I didn’t even know what Stonehenge was, but I knew it wasn’t a compliment.

So I’d been picked on pretty intensely. And I get off the bus, and I’m crying already. And you know, I have my parka hood up and all that but I hear Speckles call… and his bawl… and his moo.

MUX - Eggs and Powder, Blue Dot Sessions

And I couldn’t get to him fast enough.

Just buried my head in his fur. I loved the way he smelled from the outdoors and the alfalfa. And I just cried and cried.

Shaina Shealy: One time, Doug was reading to Speckles when his father walked in through the barn door

Doug Crandell: He just kind of turned away… And I knew, and I’m sure my father knew on some level, that I wasn’t going to be able to do it, and tolerate the emotional part of having to see it as a project and… well, leading that creature to slaughter.

Shaina Shealy: But Doug did see it as a project. Just one of a very different kind.

He was adamant that with enough care, Speckles could become a ribbon winner, that doting on him would help make him a champion – and then he could stay with him forever.

Doug Crandell: That somehow if I treated that time, you know, very, in a very holy way, I could save him.

More coming up, after a break.

MUX SWELL AND FADE

Shaina Shealy: This is Outside/In. I’m Shaina Shealy.

Throughout the winter, Doug’s special care of Speckles – it started to pay off.

MUX - Pigpaddle Creek, Blue Dot Sessions

Shaina Shealy: Doug taught speckles to align his feet with a show stick

Doug Crandell: So you would take it, touch in between their hooves, which is sensitive, and they would pick that foot up and move it in the direction that you would apply the stick.

Shaina Shealy: Doug would practice over and over again…

Doug Crandell: I would pretend in the paddock that I was going around the ring. You are to pause and look at the judge and look at the crowd, it’s a whole kind of ritual!

I could hear in my head, the, the judge talking over the speaker, the intercom in the show ring…the judge slapping speckles rear end, this huge trophy and big purple ribbon. I just then began to believe that others would see him not for his hide or hind hawks or shanks and flanks, but they would see him as I saw him as this…. this beautiful soul.

MUX SWELL AND FADE

Shaina Shealy: After months of cuddling Speckles to sleep… reading to him and training him.. blooms appeared on the trees…. The birds were chirping. Ice began to thaw.

In early spring, there was a special 4-H meeting with a guest speaker – someone from Purdue University studying agriculture.

Doug was paying close attention – trying to live up to the responsibility of his 4-H family legacy.

Doug Crandell: And this guy said… remember 4-Hers, these are not pets. And I felt his eyes on me, you know?

MUX - Our Digital Compass, Blue Dot Sessions

I was feeling guilty for that. I often blushed, I so I was.. I remember having a hot red face. I knew that – I knew that I wasn’t to be reading to Speckles and grooming him the way I was grooming him.

So the guilt was there, but there was a defiance as well.

Shaina Shealy: Suddenly it was summer. School let out. Doug had 6 weeks until the competition.

Doug Crandell: Now's the time to feed a higher protein ratio. Now's the time to begin thinking about your next calf. So it was fairly terrifying. I really became so focused kind of in a frenetic way, to be honest, that I could keep him from being auctioned.

MUX SWELL AND FADE

Shaina Shealy: A few days before the cattle show, Doug and his brothers loaded their steers into a grain truck and took them to the fairgrounds. Doug wore his favorite outfit, a thrift store shirt with pearl snaps, buttoned all the way to his throat…. He sat next to Speckles

Doug Crandell: And he was just nudging me, but nudging me more than he had before. So I had interpreted that as, you know, him trying to tell me it was okay.

Shaina Shealy: When they arrived at the fairgrounds..

MUX - As Windy as Ever, Blue Dot Sessions

Doug Crandell: You have all the sounds of roosters crowing and cows mooing and the smells of the Lion's Club tent with pork fritters and french fries, and all that kind of stuff.

The first thing you do is you're in a long line of, trucks and trailers and everybody's weighing in their steer. Most of those, my brothers were, I think 1100 and a thousand pounds.

Shaina Shealy: But even with all the toast and pretzels Doug had snuck to Speckles.

Doug Crandell: Speckles came in right about 650…My main feeling at that time is that something spectacular is going to happen…. I'm still believing that it's all gonna be okay…

Shaina Shealy: The morning of the cattle show … the event Doug had been preparing for all year. Doug skipped breakfast - he felt sick - and got into his dad's station wagon with his siblings.

They pulled up to the fair grounds before sunrise, at about 5am.

Doug Crandell: And as we pulled into this gravel parking lot, this lone bawl, moo comes out and I know it's Speckles.

Shaina Shealy: Doug spent all morning with Speckles. He brushed his hide while his mom worked the ends of his tail into a ball with aquanet.

Doug's mom gave Speckles a few sips from a soda bottle.

Doug Crandell: And so I remember that, I remember speckles burping. I’d never heard him burp before.

He looked wonderful.

Shaina Shealy: And before he knew it, speckles and Doug were in the ring together with the other steer…

MUX - Bare Elm, Blue Dot Sessions

Doug held speckles up by a leash. His hands up close under Speckles chin.

Doug Crandell: Slow motion, which also sounds a little bit cliche, but things had slowed down. And that part is just a blur of white lights. The judge is a big man, bolo tie, really surveying you and the animal.

Shaina Shealy: After a while, the judge began to line up the cattle.

Doug Crandell: at that point I started to feel in my chest and in my stomach a sob coming on.

Doug Crandell: I was at the end of the configuration. There was just one or two other steers at the end, and that meant we were not even gonna place, we would just have the participatory yellow ribbon.

space

Doug Crandell: I was just thinking if I just take off running, he'll follow me and we'll just burst through that gate go into the midway, make it out into town, and then head on for Canada something.

MUX FADE

Everything started to kind of mute. And you start going through this winding kind of obstacle course through chutes to wear. There are two semi-truck waiting, one air conditioned, and the other one [bleep]-splattered. And that’s the cattle that are going to go directly to the slaughterhouse.

MUX - True Shape, Blue Dot Sessions

I just felt like I was going to throw up.

I had my arm around speckles. I wasn't leading him. There was no reason to lead him. I was trying to get some hugs in.

As you get closer to the two semi-trucks that are waiting, and they have these chutes that are, you know, moving to the ground so that the cattle just walk up them… By then, I'm, I'm fully bawling…..

It wasn’t really until I saw his halter slid off, And I, I could feel his fur as I grabbed at it. And he was gone… up the chute, and into the livestock trailer that I really, truly realized I'd failed. That I hadn't saved him,

MUX SWELL AND FADE

Shaina Shealy: A few weeks later, Doug got a letter in the mail. It was a check for 187 dollars.

Doug Crandell: I hated the check. I hated the envelope that it came in, and I hated that we had to use speckles to make ends meet for school clothes and school supplies.

I knew from 4H meetings, from my family, from the community that what won was muscle definition and physical prowess. Um, no one was judging cattle's souls. I knew that that wasn't enough.

And I suppose what was new to me was that there were gonna be things…. I suppose, other humans and other animals that no matter what, I wasn’t gonna be able to save. And I guess that was the heaviest part.

MUX - Golden Grass, Blue Dot Sessions

In the years after Speckle’s trip to the auction house, Doug graduated high school.. he was the first in his family to go to college, and he went on to get an MFA in writing from Queens University.

He never did become a hog farmer like his dad. He's a full time writer and disability advocate.

But looking back, he’s grateful for his time in the 4-H program, for getting to spend those 10 months with speckles.

Because speckles taught him more than the leaders at 4-H could have imagined.

Doug Crandell: And so the gift I think speckles gave me most was being totally present, in all aspects, that’s what it’s about. You can’t experience all of the joy and happiness and humor or just the mundane parts of life if you’re avoiding what ccould be painful.

MUX SWELL AND FADE

Shaina Shealy: A few years ago, Doug traveled back to Indiana, to teach at a writing conference. It overlapped with the county fair, and Doug and his wife Nancy to decided to visit.

Doug Crandell: it was kind of a cool evening and we were walking through the barns … you have single light bulbs casting beautiful light on the straw and wood chips, and they're all those beautiful smells.

As they walked, there was a little boy - maybe about 11 or 12.

Doug Crandell: And he was, uh, with his pig and he was brushing him

MUX - Haena, Blue Dot Sessions

Doug’s wife Nancy decided to say hello.

Doug Crandell: You know, wanted to connect with him and said: “hello, I love your pig, what's his name?”

But the boy just looked at her. And then he said:

Doug Crandell: “We don't name them.”

MUX SWELL - INTO CREDITS

Nate Hegyi: Outside/In this week was reported and produced by Shaina Shealy.

It was mixed and edited by our Executive Producer, Taylor Quimby.

Our staff includes Marina Henke, Felix Poon, Jessica Hunt, and Justine Paradis.

Special thanks to Nancy Lopez at Snap Judgement for editorial guidance on this story.

In addition to caring for animals on his farm in Douglassville, Doug is a writer. You can find his stories about grief .. and growing up on a farm at SUN MAGAZINE, and his new book, Equipment for the Darkness.

Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.