Anthropologists discovered today that there are traditions that southerners just aren't going to part with. And one of these traditions is cow-patty bingo.
"When we think of items that are only indigenous to one people," researchers say, "then the tradition of cow-patty bingo comes to mind. This form of recreation can be traced to southern roots back over 300 years to the beginning of the country and ranks up there with witch burning and racism as one of southerner's favorite recreational pastimes."
Cow-patty bingo is played just like it sounds. Participants only need be familiar with the game of bingo, have paper with grids marked and coins to cover the numbers, cows and a field to mark off into sections and number. After the field is marked off, then a cow is set lose on the field and wherever she does her business, that's the number that gets covered.
Normally, it takes about a dozen cows to play one round of cow-patty bingo and sometimes during the holiday season farmers add glitter to the cow's feed to enhance the field of play. According to farmers, this always increases spectator participation and comments about the field of play.
"For as long as southerners have cows, there will be cow-patty bingo," says farmer and cattle rancher, Lloyd Clayton. "This has been a tradition for years."
But cow-patty bingo, researchers say, has seen a steady decline in recent years after many traditional farmers nationwide have gone out of business. This is due to many factors affecting the American farmer, the least of which has been to high prices developers have been willing to pay for their land.
Much of America has also been losing their smaller farms due to the corporatization of the American farm. This has forced farmers who do not want to sell their land to come up with creative strategies to stay in business. Cow-patty bingo and ecotourism has been one of the solutions that farmers have found effective.
Farmers are concerned that someday, nobody's going to even know that pastimes like cow-patty bingo ever existed. Many farmers are disappointed that they may never be able to pass down this recreational tradition along with the family practice of farming to their sons and daughters.
"I definitely feel a sense of loss," said cattle farmer Bubba Haystacks. "The kind of world that they are going to inherit is much different than the one that we got."
Haystack's was referring to the fact that the demographics of American culture have changed so much over the past 100 years. America has moved from an agricultural economy to an industrial, to an information based economy in a relatively short period of time. It's hard to tell where Americans are going to be at the end of this century without longstanding traditions such as cow-patty bingo to mark culture and time by.
In other news today makers of the popular Porker Brother's game, Monopoly reported record sales for the 75th year in a row.
Commenting on the amazing popularity of the game, manufacturer and PR spokesperson, Niles Loflin said, "Never has there been a game that has reflected American culture as much as Monopoly has. It's the perfect game to teach young children to become successful capitalists, give them a jump on life in America."