OK, let’s get one thing straight before we go any further: Bobby Harper has no more goats for sale. Fact is, he never had any to begin with. Throughout most of August, though, he’s had a pleasant, though not always easy, time trying to convince readers of the Mississippi Market Bulletin of that.
More on that in a minute.
The Market Bulletin, a bi-monthly publication of the Mississippi Department of Agriculture & Commerce, is kind of a Craigslist for farmers. Tabloid size and printed on newsprint, the publication features cover stories with intriguing headlines like “August is National Catfish Month” or “July Watermelons in Smith County.” The headline on the Aug. 15 issue was “Midseason Showers Help Soybean Fields” (which may no longer be the case).
A year’s subscription is $10; subscribers are allowed two free classifieds per issue.
Classifieds are the main attraction, the thing I and hundreds of the state’s farmers, and wannabe farmers, find irresistible about the Market Bulletin.
Take the Aug. 15 issue –the one about rain and the soybean crop. The issue contains 15 pages of classifieds. If you can find it on a farm, it’s here. There are the basics: farm land, tractors, outdoor power equipment, trucks. There are ads for memberships to hunting clubs, camping equipment, gourds (has its own category) and cane syrup. One advertiser lists three varieties of quail eggs. The Bulletin lists all manner of livestock and pets. I’ve lingered over ads for carrier pigeons in past issues. Llamas and alpacas have their own category.
“Goats and sheep” are a popular item. The Aug. 15 issue has 17 listings, including this one from Lowndes County: “Pygmy, Nubian & Nigerian Dwarf goats, all ages, wormed & vaccinated, selling out, $25-$75.” And then, there is a phone number. As it happens, the number is Bobby Harper’s.
For the record, Harper is a banker. Not that bankers don’t buy and sell goats, but Harper has never owned goats, nor does he plan to own any goats in the future. For that matter, he and his wife, Jo, have no pets of any kind.
“I just figured somebody had the wrong number,” he said of his first caller.
When the caller read back the phone number attached to the ad, Harper realized he was the victim of a prank.
“I knew immediately who did it,” said Harper. “He’s kind of a prankster; he’s a good friend.”
The first two or three days after the ad appeared Harper entertained a steady stream of callers. People were either looking for one goat, wanting to add to an existing herd or create a new herd, he said.
Two callers told him they had just bought some land and wanted to put goats on it.
“I had calls from Shreveport, Louisiana, Vicksburg and over in Alabama,” he said.
“Let me tell you about those goats,” he would tell his callers. “This is all a prank. I’m’ sorry to have wasted your time, but I’ve never owned a goat in my life.”
“Three or four people told me what got their attention was the price,” Harper said. “I wouldn’t have any idea whether it was a good price or bad price.”
Jo Harper wondered why her husband kept answering the phone, knowing the calls were goat inquiries.
“Well, I’ve enjoyed talking to them,” Harper told her. “If I didn’t answer the phone, they would call back.”
Turns out the prankster, a fellow banker, has chickens, goats, cows, turkeys and a mule. This was not his first prank of this sort.
“You know Bobby; he’s a people person,” the prankster said. He loves taking phone calls.”
“I wouldn’t want it to happen every month, but it’s been kind of interesting talking to people about goats,” said Harper.
Birney Imes III is the immediate past publisher of The Dispatch.
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