My wife and I ‘took in’ a movie today. “Oceans 8.” While the focus of this blog has little or nothing to do with this movie, on a scale of 1-10, I would only give it a “3,” (and believe me, this is being very charitable).
At any rate, after the movie, Jean and I walked around the corner to a BBQ restaurant. As we stepped into the front door we noticed a small blackboard with the chalked notification,
Tonight’s Special
Half Chicken
$8.99
And having “seen the writing on the wall,” my first thought was,
“Well now, this means the value of a whole chicken is $17.98.”
A measly $17.98 for a chicken
When I was ten or twelve, we used to spend a week or two each summer with my grandparents in Georgia. Granddaddy and Grandmama Ring kept a chicken coop in their back yard, along with other things; such as a clothesline, an outhouse, (yes, an outhouse) and a shed.
And while we were staying in my grandparents’ long shotgun-style, wooden home, my siblings and I enjoyed collecting chicken eggs in a basket, as the sun dipped low on the western horizon.
However, there was something else involving grandma’s chickens which fascinated me; but which I cannot say I enjoyed.
My grandmother had an old stump behind her house, (you might see where this is going) and on the first or second day of our visit, she would walk out to the chicken coop, grab a chicken by the legs, and on her way back to the stump, she would select an axe from several in her shed.
Pt. 2
Having walked the final six or eight paces to the stump, grandma laid the increasingly anxious, fluttering, squawking chicken on it’s rough wood surface, raised the axe above her shoulder, and brought its sharp edge down on the vulnerable neck of the large, white bird.
It seemed she never missed her intended target, (and she always walked away with all ten of her fingers). Having heartlessly beheaded the defenseless fowl, my grandma released what remained of the bird. And without fail, the headless, two legged critter would run in aimless circles for the next thirty seconds, or so, and would, ultimately, slump to the ground.
As I reflect on that little season now, I can only wonder how my grandmother was able to feed and water those poor chickens for years, and collect their eggs on a daily basis, and know them, as much as a human being could know a lesser species, and yet find the wherewithal to stretch them out on a chopping block, and whack off their heads.
And if that was not sufficient, while the neighborhood cats fought over the bloody, severed head, grandmama would lift the decapitated body of the chicken from the ground, walk up the steps of her unenclosed back porch, dunk the fowl in a large pot filled with scalding water, just off the stove, and de-feather the fowl.
Having finished the nasty task, my grandmother stepped inside her back door, dismembered the bird, covered the breast, and thighs and legs in flour, and dropped the pieces in a hot frying pan full of sputtering grease.
Once the chicken was a golden brown, grandma used a set of tongs to lift the pieces from the pan, and laid them out on a plate covered with a paper towel.
With this, the plate of chicken was laid in the center of the dining room table; surrounded by creamed corn, green beans, mashed potatoes and biscuits.
And much to my shame, I admit it,
…I helped myself to several pieces of chicken; that same chicken which I had seen alive and well, and strutting his stuff, (thank you) only a half hour earlier.
The value of a chicken
Pt. 3
Speaking of the value of a chicken, if one can believe the following tale, it apparently varies.
“Mike” was a standard white roster owned by a man named Lloyd Olsen of Fruita, Colorado. On September 10, 1945, Lloyd walked out into the yard, as my grandmother was so often prone to do, to get dinner. And exactly like my granny had done countless times in her life, he brought an axe down on poor Mike’s head; decapitating the bird in one fell swing.
However, much to Lloyd’s surprise, the roster did not die, was still able to stand, and managed to sit clumsily on its perch. He even tried to preen and crow, but could not accomplish either task.
It is thought that when Lloyd brought the axe down on Mike’s neck, he left a portion of the brain stem intact, which allowed the bird to go right on living, and moving; and breathing through that jagged hole in its neck.
Well, old Lloyd soon realized that he had discovered the pot of proverbial gold at the end of the rainbow, and, subsequently, took “Miracle Mike” on the road. The decapitated roster was photographed for Life and Time magazines, and appeared in a traveling sideshow which toured the country. Ultimately, Mike grossed as much as $4,500 a month for his owner.
Mr. Olsen laboriously fed his star fowl a diet of milk with an eye dropper, and some say he would also drop grains of corn into the opening which served as his throat.
However, they say “all good things must come to an end,” and two years after Lloyd did the awful deed, Mike succumbed to a constriction in that gory throat.
During the course of Miracle Mike’s traveling sideshow, he grossed upwards of $100,000; approximately one and a half million dollars in today’s currency.
Which calls to mind that sign I saw as I entered the BBQ place yesterday.
Tonight’s Special
Half chicken
$8.99
Slightly less than a whole chicken certainly earned old Lloyd a whole lot more than that.
The value of a chicken
And yes, I admit it. Among my sampler plate at the restaurant was a couple of pieces of chicken; which I enjoyed a great deal. (However, unlike my grandmother and Mr. Olsen, I didn't know my intended dinner personally).
By William McDonald, PhD. From (Mc)Donald's Daily Diary. Vol. 83. Copyright pending
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