Bull

This week we meet Bull. Tim Bull. Bull was a heck of a high school athlete. Big. Strong. Fast. 
 
Bull had a dream. He dreamed of a world without rancor. A world where cooperation, not competition, ruled the roost. 
 
Bull’s middle age now, where Dreams go to die.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the ten Minute Storyteller. That's me Bill Simpson,
your host, narrator and author. We hear at the ten
minute Storyteller endeavor to entertain you with tall tales or
rendered swiftly and with the utmost empathy. We pledge to

(00:25):
pack as much entertainment, emotion, and exploration into the human
condition as ten minutes will permit mini novels on steroids.
This week we meet Bull. Tim Bull. Bull was a

(00:45):
heck of a high school athlete. Big, strong and fast,
Bull had a dream. He dreamed of a world without rancor,
a world where cooperation, not competition, ruled the roost. Bull
is middle age now where dreams go to die. Bull

(01:13):
Tim Bull, Tim Bull, Tim Burr, a giant of a man,
bigger than life, a block out the Sun's sized, bloke,
over ten pounds at birth, towered over his kindergarten teacher,
could dunk in eighth grade, unstoppable on the high school gridiron.

(01:39):
Courted by countless acc coaches to come to their school
and play hoops. Big ten coaches came to his hometown,
got down on their hands and knees and begged Tim
Bull to come to their school and carry the football
to glory. Tim said, then thanks, but no thanks. Tim

(02:03):
loved sports, but he didn't love the winning and losing.
Especially he didn't love the winning. Winning made Tim uneasy,
not so much because he didn't like to win, but
because he didn't like to see others lose. All that
winning and losing it made both sad. It made Bowl depressed.

(02:25):
He thought there must be a better way. Bull's little
league coach used to say, it's not whether you win
to lose, boys, No, it's how you play the game.
But coach's words were a bunch of bunk. Whenever they won,
coach was giddy with joy and jubulation, but whenever they lost.

(02:47):
Whenever they lost, he was surly and quick to cast stones.
You should have tagged up and score on that fly ball,
to write Gomez, Or you feel that easy grounder to
third barker and they don't score a single run at
any Do you know that? Do you know if that's
the way that worked out? Huh hah huh. Or I
want you to knock off that clapping for the other

(03:09):
side ball You got me no clapping for the other side,
No way, no how, no place for that kind of stuff. Sure, coach,
it's how you play the game, well, Bull. He loved
to play the games. He loved to track down the
high fly ball to center. He loved a haul in
the pass on the deep post, over the middle, and

(03:32):
sprint for the end zone. He loved to rebound the ball,
start the fast break with an outlet to the wing,
dash down the court, set a pick roll to the hoop,
take the pass, and lay it up. Nothing felt so good,
so free, so wonderful. Nothing but you see. Bull also

(03:52):
dug it when a player on the opposing team stayed
with a curveball, waited on it, and bam knocked that
curveball over the fence. Even if the home run came
in the bottom of the ninth and his team lost
four to three, didn't matter. He loved that flyball. He
loved that homer. Or when he was playing defensive end

(04:14):
and the scatback on the other team took a pitch
out and sprinted down the sideline before Bull could lay
a hand on him. He'd just stand there, grinning, amazed
and impressed at the boy's speed. Or when some big
man in the low post caught a pass from his
point guard position, faked right spun left and dunked over Tim,

(04:37):
leaving Bull standing there his jock strapped down around his ankles.
This kind of stuff gave Bull as much pleasure as
sinking the winning basket from mid court. Watching other athletes
do crazy cool stuff made Bull happy, just like it
made him happy when his dad kissed his mom before

(04:59):
leav for work, when he struggled for a week or
more to make sense of Absalom Absalom before finally realizing
it was all about how man's desire for power and
influence ultimately destroys and denigrates, Or when he watched his
little brother play the saxophone in the middle school band.

(05:22):
That's what gave Bull joy. At his high school graduation,
Bull was selected by his classmates to give a short speech.
He was not the valedictorian or the salutorian. He was
just big and beloved. He said, Hey, I gotta say,

(05:44):
high school sure has been a great time. I hope
the rest of my life is this great. I think
it will be because I had this crazy, wild dream
the other night where everyone got along. Everyone you know,
supported each other, co operation over competition, a whole lot
of hugging and backslapping rather than arm crossing and backstabbing.

(06:09):
More love than hate in that dream, I gotta tell you,
more love than hate, more admiration than jealousy. So you know,
fellow graduates, I foresee a world where the dude who
comes in last in the one hundred yard dash is
celebrated even more than the dude who comes in first,
just because he was willing to go out there and

(06:30):
give it a go, give it a try. But really,
what's it matter who's the fastest or the strongest, or
the richest or the most powerful. What's it matter? What's
it proved? What's the point? Well, Bull's older now, middle age,
hair thinning, paunch expanding, But he hasn't given up on

(06:54):
his dream. Nope, he still has hope, still believes in
a world without winner losers. Sure, plenty of doubts along
the way, okay, including his own inability to get along
with his wife and his kids. So much middling competition
and resentments, so much petty desire to come out on top.

(07:16):
Not a single day goes by without one and all
vying for power and control. So just how Bull wonders,
just how can there be harmony and cooperation between the
genders and the races and the Nation States. When even
a handful of biologically connected family members can't make it

(07:39):
through breakfast without squabbling and squawking, well, hell, it's just
enough to make a grown man weep. Sometimes, sometimes Bull
thinks he might just give up, say to hell with it.
After all, everyone's been telling Bull forevermore that he crazy,

(08:01):
totally out of his gourd. No winners or losers. What
a crock of shit that is. Man, they love to
tell him, is an aggressive, competitive beast. It's not in
his jeans or buried in his DNA to get along,
to cooperate, to be kind, to treat others as you
would like to be treated. It's survival of the fittest

(08:24):
out there. Yep, that's what they tell Bull. That's what
they've been telling Bull for decades. I destroy you or
you destroy me. And all this has been well, it's
been very tough on old Bull. Tim Bull, Tim Bull,
Timber Bull wishes sometimes that he was back in high school,

(08:50):
a big fish in a little pond, a giant, a
man among boys. Now he's kind of like well, like nobody,
nobody at all, just another middle aged guy with big
dreams that never came true. Thanks for listening to this

(09:18):
original audio presentation of Timbo narrated as always by the author.
If you enjoy today's story, please take a few seconds
to rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast, and then
go to Thomas William Simpson dot com for additional information

(09:39):
about the author and to view his extensive canon. The
Ten Minute Storyteller is produced by Andrew Fleglsi and Josh
Colodney and as part of the Elvis Duran Podcast Network
in partnership with iHeart Productions. Until next time, this is
Bill Simpson, your ten minute Storytelling.