Tag Archives: Talking Turkey

Just a Poultry Encounter Part Two of Three. A Turkey Tail…Tale.

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Thomm the talking turkey continues…

“About a year ago my uncle Thommy went missing. Here one moment, gone the next. I was so fouled up and sadness accompanied my search for him. I wanted to pull my feathers out as I hopped and flapped over every square yard of the range. I walked the entire perimeter of the property for compromises in security. If there was a sag or a hole in the chicken wire fence he might have fallen victim to the coyotes. I never found him but I did find I had grown up through the loss. I wasn’t some little punk of a poult any more and things were going to be alright, even without my uncle Thommy to wing his wisdom and legendary stories my way. It was me and my buddies now, at least until about a month ago.”

I noticed his face starting to pale. I don’t understand how a turkey could get any paler, but he did.

He continued slowly with a Star Trek Captain Kirk cadence.  “They…just…all…started…to…vanish!”

“Who did?”

“All my friends…Wing Man, Tommy Boy, Hook Beak, Pencil Neck, Bird Turd.  My whole crew was gone!”

“You say it was about a month ago? Well I think…”

“I know, I know. At least I know now,” His tone of voice changed to that of resignation. “I was so naïve. I thought that our ranch was different from all those other PPP type places. I had to get out of there. I had to leave on my own terms so I made a way of escape. Last year, I noticed an area of the fence which hung a tad low. I thought if I could get a running start there might be a possibility. After all, I was the champion wheel dodger. So from twenty five yards back I dug my talons in and pushed the throttle to full on….and here I am!”

“Wow. That’s quite a story, even from a turkey…ehem, no offence,” I said.

“Quite all right.”

I notice we were approaching the Mattawan exit and saw Thomm sitting there, his belly sticking out with his wings folded over it.

“Hey, how ‘bout I give you a ride to Berrien Springs?”

“You don’t have to…”

“It’s a holiday!”  I immediately felt bad knowing which holiday it was and my present company.  How could I be so insensitive!  “I’m so sorry!”

“No worries, I’ve come to embrace this time of year as a point of destiny, not regret.”

Hmmm, this Thom Thom grew up in a hurry or he has gotten his feathers all fluffed up with poultry traumatic stress syndrome.

“I think hearing about the dream would help me understand why you are going back to the ranch.”

“Of course.” He sat up in the car seat. “I think what influenced the dream was the feeling of hopelessness, or rather, I could almost feel meaning and purpose drain out of me as I hitched rides away from home. So, as I dozed off or dozed on or rode the horizon of R.E.M., I had this dream. My Uncle was in it. He was plucked, stuffed, and golden brown on a platter right next to the cranberry sauce! I gasped in horror! Actually in my native tongue it would have been an annunciated “blullullla.” The table was long and the people were plenty with their heads bowed and hands folded in their lap…except for some of the children staring at my uncle like he was Turkish Delight. Then I realized even though uncle Thommy was missing feet, talons and all, his spindle neck and bald head were attached AND ALIVE! He cricked his neck and looked me right in my eye, my right eye, and began to speak.

“Thom Thom, oh how I’ve missed you! How you’ve grown. You have a nice beard there. I’ve been worried about you. I know there is reason to run, at least it seems the reasonable response to the recent events in your life. But I am here to offer another possibility, so don’t start molting like you’ve seen the ghost of Thankgiving’s Past. This is only a dream, but the scene is a reality that many of us have the privilege to enter. For many of us it is our manifest destiny.”

“Destiny! Destiny? Butter basted, extra crispy, stuffed with who knows what, and taken from the free range to the range oven…just what kind of destiny is that?”

“I know how you feel.”

“Do you now!?”

“Yes I do, because you are looking at last Thanksgiving at the Hubble’s house. For a brief moment I laid in the middle of a family taking time to reconnect at an annual meal. Meal time for American’s used to be the time of day, every day, for communication and communion. Eye to eye contact, body language, common courtesy, and a physical reminder of belonging. Now those special times are often reduced to a few times a year.

When I was your age, an older, wiser, Tom took me aside and gave me ‘the talk.’ The talk I never made the opportunity to give to you. I procrastinated, and I kept seeing the chicken scratch writing on the wall but….”  His voice trailed off. “I’m so sorry I didn’t prepare you for this. I hope you will find a way beyond this and forgive me.” He then shook his snood and said, “This is my chance, and as weird as it might be to listen to a succulent, organically raised bird speak to you from the dead, I will not pass this up.”

 

Stay tuned…

Just a Poultry Encounter Part One: A Thanksgiving Tail…Ahem, Tale

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Thanksgiving Wallpapers: Thanksgiving Turkey Cartoon Wallpapers

Highway hypnosis took over the minute I finished the on ramp to I-94 west. Destination: home. The back-end of the van sagged with holiday food which included not one, but two frozen turkeys. I scored a couple of fifteen pound weaklings. I felt like kicking sand in their faces, of which they had none. I set the cruise at seventy, pulled the arm rest down, and turned off the Christmas music.

I saw something short, white, and moving along the rumble strip on the right near exit sixty-eight. I cancelled the cruise and coasted. It was a bird! It was a rotund bird trotting with the traffic. A left-wing was stretched in the air. I tapped the brake and as I got closer its tail feathers reached for the sky and spread like a Geisha’s fan. “It’s a turkey!” I said, “A suicidal turkey!” Come to think of it, a nice fat turkey like that, suicide would be a viable option rather than wait for the chopping block or hope for a pardon from the President. I put on my emergency flashers as I passed him and pulled over the white line. In my mirror I saw him put his wing down and start running for my van. Trotting?  I got out and went around the back of my vehicle and this out of breath bird approached.

“Thank goodness!…I know there is a trust issue in this country for picking up hitch hikers, but, come on, how much harm can I do in my condition?”

I stopped short with my hand to my chin and thought I’ve heard a lot of people talk turkey, but a talking turkey!? I shook it off.

“Where you headed?”

“West.”

“I can take you as far as Mattawan,” I said.

“Thanks, I was sure I was going be the next entrée on the Road Kill Café menu. I mean really, if people don’t want to give me a ride they should just drive on by! They were honking and swerving and yelling out their windows! Geez, it’s like they’ve never seen a hitch hiking turkey before.”

“Well I…”

“I’m just trying to get from A to B you know!” He said as his snood flapped from one side of his beak to the other.

“Hey, let’s get in out of this holiday traffic,” I said. I moved up one of the kid’s car seats and positioned it in the middle of the bench behind me and buckled him in.  Under forty pounds, have to be in a car seat. I got back in and adjusted my mirror so I could see him. He had a long scrawny neck and a not so handsome head attached. His head was stubble bald with a three inch orange-red snood draped over his beak. The hanging red caruncles waved back and forth like a dancing double chin every time he turned his head.  “Do you have a name?”

“Tom. That’s Tom with an h, T-H-O-M. I was named after my uncle Thommy.”

I had an Uncle Tommy once. Come to think of it he would have made a nice turkey on many different levels.

“I’m Jerry with a J. Are you running away?”

“I was, but now I’m heading back to Berrien Springs,” he said as his head bobbed and weaved.

“What’s in Berrien Springs?”

“The free-range turkey ranch I lived at since I was just a wee poult.”

“Why the turn around? Why are you going back?”

“Bad dream. Well, it wasn’t a total bad dream. It was a wake-up call kind of bad dream. I mean it had an epiphany inserted in it. I mean I had an epiphany while I was dreaming. No, no, when I woke up and assessed its meaning…  I was taking a snooze behind a rest stop near Detroit and had a half-sleep non-R.E.M. dream.” He stopped short and took cleansing breath.

“Hey, it’s okay, do you want to tell me about it?” I said as a saw his head down with his snood hanging dead center off his pale yellow beak.

“Yeah, maybe talking about it will help me process it better.” His choice of the word process made me raise an eyebrow.

“Why don’t you start by telling me why you ran away in the first place? I kind of have an idea seeing what time of year it is in America, but I don’t want my assumptions to precede the truth.

“Well,” he said after a gulp, “being from a free range ranch I had a great childhood. There was lots of freedom, lots of friends, and lots of room to run. I even enjoyed short flights from time to time. I hardly ever got pecked on and when I did, it was my buddies having some good, clean fun. Yeah, we used to stay up late and talk about our adventures, like when we would wheel dodge. We saw how close we could strut in front of cars or tractors without getting run over. We had chicken fights in the watering trough. We had snood flapping contests until our gizzards hurt.

My uncle Thommy, in whose honor I was named, would tell us of his days in the PPP, the Poultry Processing Program, and his daring escape aided by some animal rights group. He was like a father to me. He would always find a way to help me appreciate life. I remember the way he puffed out his chest and made eye contact. That was his listen up sonny body language.” Thomm then changed his voice to sound like his old uncle. “You weren’t raised to fly but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.” He smiled, although I didn’t think turkeys could with a solid beak and all. “I will never forget that,” he said. Then Thommy looked out the window and sighed and his wing covered his mouth as he continued…

To be continued tomorrow…