Continuing Cows

So it's Cow Week here at Tir na Blog with the big 2011 cow unveiling just a couple days away now. Tomorrow we'll meet our 2011 cow artist, but today let's do a little history.

First of all, why a cow? Here's what I wrote back in 2006:

"What's The Deal With The Cow?" I get this question once in awhile. We all do occasionally here at Irish Fest HQ. I heard it on local talk radio a few days ago. Most people understand it. They see the little tag line we use every once in awhile, "Celtic Pride in Cowtown" and they say, "Oh, right. Kansas City. Cowtown. A cow. I get it."


They get it. But not everybody likes it. This might sound silly to some of you outside Kansas City, but some people here get really bent out of shape when they hear our fair city referred to as A Cowtown. They're quick to point out that the stockyards closed years ago. That we're a thriving, modern metropolis, with culture and class and big league sports and events you can wear tuxedos to and whatnot. Nary a bovine in sight.


All true. I know I haven't run across a cow around here in years. I also know that this coming weekend, Crown Center will be full of happy people, most of whom are not from Ireland, many of whom have never visited Ireland, all proudly declaring themselves to be Irish. Is that wrong? Of course not. And that's the point.


We're a people who cherish our history, who hold on to it for all we're worth, through thousands of miles and sometimes hundreds of years because we value that sense of belonging, that sense of an ancient and sometimes distant kinship to a powerful past and a shared identity. We understand that the past isn't something to run away from, but rather what molds us and makes us who we are, and who we want to be.


Same thing with Cowtown. Or at least I think it should be. Kansas City most certainly was built on the strong backs of cattle and the men who drove them here. And on the backs of the Irish railroad workers and strong Irish women.


Kansas City is a cowtown. It is a railroad town. It is a river town, a jazz town, a barbeque town.


And Labor Day weekend, more than any of those, Kansas City is an Irish town.

So that's the why, now here's the who. Though this years marks the 9th Kansas City Irish Fest, we've only had 8 cows, counting the new one. The first year back in '03 we were sadly cowless, which is probably why we got rained out. When that first cow appeared on our poster in 2004 we had no intention of growing her into a herd. It was the year I wrote our "Celtic Pride in Cowtown" slogan and the shamrock-bespotted bovine just fit. But people loved our cow and at Irish Fest we're all about giving people what they love. So the next year, 2005 the cow was back this time rendered by an old friend of mine, illustrator Tom Patrick. His version of the cow was a beautifully painted scene of a cattle auction with that shamrocked cow front and center. With Tom I started an ongoing tradition of asking friends (who happen to be some of the world's best illustrators) to reinterpret our cow in their style. In 2006, Mike Esberg picked up the paint brush and gave us both our first smiling cow and her first friend, a small bird. The following year Maria O'Keefe put the cow on her back two legs and set her to dancing, along with three starlings. In 2008, I forgot to ask anybody to draw us a cow so I had to do it again. I stood her up on her hind legs and gave her a fiddle. In 2009, Tom Patrick's wife Maja Andersen took a turn, adding an Irish dancer to the back of the cow and a pipe smoking raven along side. And last year the incomparable Oliver Christianson made the cow his own in his inimitable cartoon style. All of our cow artists, aside from being talented and good sports are also generous, because they all have earned exactly $0 for their efforts. We do make sure that they don't pay for much Irish Fest weekend however, especially at the beer tents.

7 cows so far. Which was your favorite? And who will be or 2011 cowboy or cowgirl? We'll find out tomorrow.