The Psycho Billy Goat

The Psycho Billy Goat

The first home, I remember well, was a little three room house, on Bushhog Ridge, in Liberty, Ky. It had electricity, but little else. We had a well to draw our water, an outhouse, and the stove was used for heating as well as cooking. The house was constructed so poorly that in the winter I walked through snow, to go from my to my parent’s room, because the wind had blown it through the walls

It’s funny the things that stick with you. On Christmas I got a doctor’s kit, and I went around checking everyone’s heart. Looking back, I probably wanted one since I had been recently hospitalized with scarlet fever. I also remember my mother curled up, asleep, in a child’s bed, in the hospital room where I was kept, because she did not want to leave me.

I still smile at the memory of my mother making biscuits that no one could eat. I don’t mean they tasted bad, no one COULD eat them. She gave them to my dog, and he chewed on them for three days before giving up.

The most bizarre thing that happened, though, was the day the psycho billy goat attacked. My mother’s younger sister, Betty Lou, and two friends were walking down the road, when a farmer’s goat escaped and chased them down the road, to our house.

The girls were screaming as they ran, so my mother heard them, and met then as they got to the door. They were hysterical, so she brought them inside quickly, to find out what was wrong.

As the girls relayed the story, the goat started butting the door, trying to force its way inside. Mom grabbed a shotgun, opened the door, and shot the goat in the head. Its head a bloody mess, it again attacked. Mom slammed the door and took them to her room, at the back of the house, to get away from the goat. The girls continued to scream, so the goat came around back and tried to get in through the window.

While all this was happening my father and grandfather were hunting in the woods behind the house. Grandpa goes, “I wonder what those dogs are barking at?” Dad answered, “It sounds like someone screaming!” They ran back to the house, just as the goat was about to get in.

They shot the goat, and it turned and charged them. They both continued to fire until the goat fell over, dead. I don’t believe anyone ever knew what set the goat off. Mom and her sister still get kidded from time to time about being attacked by a goat, but at the time it wasn’t funny. It was frightening and bizarre.

Soon after this, we moved to Greenwood, Indiana. But strangely the happiest memories of my childhood, were of that house, and the following vacations, every summer, with my grandparents.