Many of you long time readers remember that *The Institute has its own fully domesticated herd of North American Buffalo. You can see them in the picture above coming in from The Institutes high country where they summer. These are Buffalo not bison which so many of those so-called naturalists keep insisting is their correct name. Those nattering nabobs of negativity constantly repeat this misnomer. They have even gotten it into some scientific writing, by having made up a scientific name for the animal. It is “Bison, bison” as if repeating it over and over makes it so. Look it up, they have even assigned a bunch of Italian words to its Scientific Classification. Like bringing Europe into this is going to make them right.

Remember when you were young and you went to the movies. What did every single Indian and a lot of white guys call these animals? That’s right Buffalo. Sometimes Tontonka but that a story for another time. Why would they lie? All through our history, our ancestors, who couldn’t all be lying, have used buffalo in song and story. “Buffalo gals, won’t you come out tonight, come out tonight, etc.” It’s buffalo, they’re called buffalo just deal with it. Wild Bill Hickok didn’t hunt bison. He was a buffalo hunter. He’d a probably shot you for calling him a bison hunter. They were touchy about things like that.

But we digress. This is just a small part of our bison Buffalo herd. We decided to bring them down from their high country pastures because of the storm brewing back there on the mountain behind them. We bring them in so they don’t get wet. They become irritable when they’re wet and even though we have them trained they become peckish and out of sorts when damp.

It also gives us a chance to trim their hooves, comb them out and remove as much tartar from their teeth as possible. That all works best when you have dry buffalo to work with. Each of the mature buffalo has its own monogrammed blanket which we put on them to ward off the chill. Woe betide the intern who places the wrong blanket on the wrong buffalo. You only do that once. That’s when we bring up the interns assistant to make the change from the wrong to the right buffalo. Sometimes we have to bring up several assistants in a row to get the job done. Cardinal Rule: Watch Which Blanket You Put On Each Buffalo.

We had a moving post card from one of our young readers concerning Buffalo. Here it is.

Dear Mr. The Director, Isn’t it hard to handle Buffalo when they’re alone? How do you do it with a whole big herd? Do they bite, or kick? I’ve seen stories about buffalo on TV and they make a lot of messes all the time. Who cleans that up? I think buffalo are neat and I would like to have one. Do you ever sell them? If so I know where Mommy’s credit cards are and I could send you the numbers. Would that be all right? Sincerely, Towanda Clarice Malachowski, from Green bay, Wis. P.S. If you send one don’t send it on the weekend, that’s when my dad’s home. I don’t think he likes buffalos. Love, Towanda.

Well Towanda, thank you for writing and liking buffalo as much as we do. We can answer your questions. It is hard to handle buffalo when they’re alone and it’s really hard when there’s a bunch of them, which we call a herd. They will bite and kick but only when you do something the buffalo doesn’t like, such as tightening the blankets straps to tight. If you get one, don’t do that. It makes them grumpy. Yes Towanda they do make messes but it depends on how much you feed them. If you get one we will send along a pamphlet to explain their care and feeding. As for who cleans all that up we have a new intern here that does that. Her name is Hane Fonda and you can write to her if you want. Just send your letters to Hanie the Scooper % of The Institute.

The big question you didn’t ask, Towanda, was how do we get them to come when we call them and behave when they get here. That’s our big secret about handling buffalo. And it involves a special invention that we created right here at The Institute. Our staff at our “Inventions Made To Order While You Wait department” made it just for handling buffalo. It’s ours and no one else can have it. It’s called the “Buffalo Whistle”. When we blow it our specially trained buffalo come running to be first in line to get out of the weather. And also to do other things like tricks and synchronized dancing. We have a great big special one that we mount on a half-track ( A great big truck thing that hauls guys to places where they can shoot other guys. Ask your Mommy about War,) and when we blow that one, you can hear it in Kansas, it’s really, really loud. If there are any buffalo out there they’ll hear it and come running for sure. If you get your very own buffalo, and you said you know where mommy’s credit cards were, we’ll send you your very own buffalo whistle with your name on it. It has a hole in the top for a chain so you can wear it around your neck. None of the other kids have one of those we’ll bet. You ‘ll be the most special kid in school. Just think of show and tell day when you get to show off your new pet. We’ll send you a phone number where one of our special friends in Mumbai will help you with mommy’s credit card numbers. Then just sit back and wait. Before you can say “Holy Mackerel! That’s a big buffalo” there’ll be one at your door. Thank you for writing Towanda and you might ask some of the other kids if they like buffalos too.

We here at The Institute love to receive mail from young or old so keep those cards and letters coming in. Email too. We like Emails. We’d like to stay and chat longer but we have to get down to supervise the tartar removal process. That’s a complex process that needs a lot of supervision. It takes several interns to hold the buffalo’s head while we drill and fill as our resident dentist likes to say. Stay tuned.

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