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The Rocky Mountains is a range of mountains in the North American west which stretches from Canada to Mexico. The air is thin, the view is breathtaking, and boy can it snow.
As I understand it, the term “purple mountains majesty” in “America the Beautiful” came from a view from Pike’s Peak. Granted, I heard that bit while on a cog train going up the same mountain while developing a painful ear infection, so the validity of that claim is just going to have to be taken on blind faith that the tour guide wasn’t lying his ass off to liven up the train ride.
Anyway, somewhere in that range is a mountain of mythical standing with no name. Few humans have ever set foot on it, let alone climb the thing.
Make no mistake though. The mountain didn’t gain it’s mythological notoriety for being a big ass hill in the middle of the Rockies (the mountains, not the baseball team). Nope. You see, on that mountain there’s a long held folk tale among the natives in the region (Colorado residents, mind you) that there’s a massive herd of bulls which live around the peak of the mountain.
Bulls aren’t really known to live on mountains, you see. Instead, they live on ranches servicing the local cattle and menacing drunken cow tippers. The mere thought that a bull or even a heard of bulls could live on top of a mountain is completely absurd.
Thus, the myth.
But wait. There’s more.
The entire region suffers from earthquakes. For all I know, it’s because of some evil scientist in a local cave testing his various devices and their combustibility. Better yet, it could be just a matter of geographical happenstance. None the less earthquakes happen, and they’re usually significant.
Part of the legend which circulates among the natives (residents of Colorado) who live in the valley of the mountain reports a one man expedition which managed to summon the courage, the strength, the tenacity, the can-do spirit, and the financing to climb that mountain in search for the glorious bulls.
Right. Why do you need financing to climb a big rock?
That’s easy. There are convenience stores strategically placed on the path up the mountain which feature pricey fountain drinks (they even have Diet Dr. Pepper), an abundant supplie of scratch off lottery tickets, and several copies of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue featuring Kate Upton.
Quick side note: It occurs to me that in the coming days, weeks, and months, search engines will direct people to this particular story when they’re actually looking for film footage of the curvacious swimsuit model doing some sort of dance called the Dougie (whatever the hell that is) at a Clippers game.
Anyway, during the year the man made his journey up there, the mountain had quite the busy season adorned with earthquakes. The problem was that every time he encountered an earthquake, the shaking ground would typically knock him down and send him rolling, tumbling, and plummeting down the steep grade at break neck speeds and angles. Each time, he would brush himself off and start making his way back up the mountain in an effort akin to Sisyphus.
After several death defying weeks of climbing part of the mountain only to be knocked back down, he finally, finally got to the top.
The air was thin. The view was breathtaking. Boy could it snow.
As he stood there at the top and took in his first breath, another earthquake hit. Before he could exhale the crisp, cold air, he was already on the ground and tumbling downward at the aforementioned break neck speeds and angles. As we started his involuntary decent, something caught the corner of his eye which was too small to be a bull. It looked almost like a dog.
Weeks and weeks of climbing and falling off of that mountain had taken their toll on our brave young hero. Even still, just when he had gotten to the top and taken in the view he was ready to give up on his search for the elusive mountain bulls in favor of lofty goals involving terra firma. After seeing what he had seen just before his last fall, his curiosity got the best of him. He had to go back up there and solve the mystery beset upon him. Why hadn’t the animal he saw earlier fallen down the mountain during any one of the earthquakes which had prolonged his expedition? Inquiring minds wanted to know.
So his journey up that blasted hill resumed. There was another earthquake on the way up and he managed to mitigate his losses to a lost hour of hiking. This was primarily due to the fact that his tumble had been halted when he landed on the back wall of one of the strategically placed convenience stores. The counter clerk had managed to roll right out of the door during the last quake so the store remained unattended. A review of the security tapes several days later when the clerk returned would reveal that our young hero had helped himself to 44 ounces of cool refreshing Diet Dr. Pepper, and an aggressive rifling through the pictures of the Kate Upton in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue. The lottery tickets were left unscratched.
At last, our young hero made it to the top.
Upon arriving to the peak and taking in the view and the cool thin air, he didn’t find what he was initially looking for. He sat there for what seemed like months waiting for the elusive mountain bulls to appear. In reality, it was only a few days. The thin air had played some tricks on him.
Finally one morning at about 7:18 am (mountain time), the mountain’s grand inquisitor was finally able to see what he had been looking for. As he woke up from a questionable slumber, a dog sat there with it’s cold nose just a matter of inches away from the face of our hero. To be honest, this scared the bejeezers out of our young hero. “Good Lord in butter,” he exclaimed, “what are you doing and why are you so close to me?”
“One could ask the same of you.” said the dog.
That’s right. The dog talked.
“You can talk?”
“One could ask the same of you.” said the dog.
The young man looked at the dog. He looked at the shape of it’s head, the triangular ears, the barrel chest, and the muscular back. “There’s a legend about bulls living on this mountain.”
“That would be us.” The dog responded. He motioned behind him to other dogs with similar features coming out of hiding.
“But you’re not…”
“We’re pit bulls.”
“Ah.” Our hero just sat there and regarded his new acquaintance for another moment before speaking again. “Can I ask you a question?”
“You just did.”
“Yes, well,” he hesitated, “I’ve been humping my way up this mountain for the last several months trying to find you. Each of those times, an earthquake has kept me from getting to the top.” As he described his journey, the ground started a low, guttural noise which our hero knew all too well. Another earthquake was about to hit. “Look. My ride down is coming and I just gotta know something. How is it that when these earthquakes hit, you never get knocked off the mountain like everything else?”
The earth started shaking violently and it was just a matter of moments before the break neck speeds and angles would resume. As the earth shook, each of the pit bulls sat down and lifted their front feet up into the air. By doing so, each dog rested on their plump rumps with an even displacement of weight. They swayed back and forth a bit, but never fell. Just before our hero started is descent, the dog who had been in his face just moments before gave him the answer to his all important question. “We bulls wobble,” said the dog, “but we don’t fall down.”
