GRANDPA AND THE CHICKENS

Grandpa – carpenter, son of a carpenter; grizzly, but not big; simple & unassuming; strong belief in ‘the place’ of women… if there was a man around. He was the ‘Boss’ of the family, unless there was a woman around. I did notice that most of the time his opinion was the ‘family’ opinion and his decisions were ‘family’ decisions. Strangely enough, I never heard a bad word…even when he wasn’t around… about my Grandpa from Grandma or even from my twin aunts. Can you imagine the difficulty of refusing two precocious daughters? I have since figured that he did not refuse them; but, rather, often talked them out of what he did not think appropriate or affordable with reasoning beyond their years. In short, he was brilliant beyond his education, although he was the last of nine sons. He must have learned something. He made those daughters feel guilty for wanting what they wanted…particularly if he could not grant the wish, if he just couldn’t afford it. They had been raised to be good Christian girls, religious, moral and appropriately proper. As such, it was verbal artwork for him to transform their wants into guilt trips.

Very late in his life, one of the last things Grandpa told me: “Sonny, try to make wishes come true for your loved ones. If you can’t, well then…. you can’t; but try. If you fall short, make it very short; so people know it wasn’t for lack of tryin’. You can say you tried your best. Try hard; ‘cause Sonny, it isn’t all about money and it isn’t all up to you. Something…who knows!.... something…. could happen, just when you think of giving up, something that suddenly makes it possible for you to make a dream come true for someone. People who try hard accomplish more than they remember...but not more than others remember.”

Now you're thinking this a lot to remember verbatum, and you are right. Just 16 at the time, I was too young to know just how true his words were, what good advice he was offering. When I asked what difference it made, he said, “It’s where you get peace of mind…trying hard and doing right, that is; and a good carpenter shares his work with others for generations to come, not just during his own short life.” There was a long pause. He was waiting for a reaction and I was trying to figure out what he had just said when, suddenly he added, “Jesus was a carpenter, son of a carpenter.” It struck me as ‘heavy’ at the time… particularly from a man his age. He passed peacefully, a well-loved and respected widower and remembered very well by his children and friends… and their children.

I suspect he had made a few dreams come true and liked the feeling, remembered it as one of those ‘special’ feelings a man could have….and wanted to share that bit of philosophy to which he undoubted gave deserved credit. I’m proud now, to be the recipient of that gem.

One Sunday morning, after Grandma read to me from the Bible and explained the meaning of the various parables…or stories…from the Old Testament, my Grandpa made me ‘pick a chicken.’ I was 4 at the time. I had no idea I was playing ‘God’ over some poor chicken’s life. All I had ever done before was feed them and collect those beautiful eggs, for, most assuredly, eggs have one of the most appealing shapes and pretty pastel shells. When I gathered eggs, my Aunt had taught me to "candle" each egg. If I could see the baby chicken inside, I would tuck those back in the straw nests. Those were not ‘eating eggs’. Those were potential chickens. Grandpa said that was how we got our last name. There were 2 kinds of Candlers centuries ago when people first started choosing last names by means of their occupation (joyners, wrights, smiths, carpenters, fishers, etc). There were those who made candles and those who candled eggs. Anyway...back to chickens. I thought, like puppies and kittens, some were prettier than others; but they had a lot less personality.

He didn’t tell me why I was to pick one; so, naturally, given what little I knew about chickens, I picked NOT the prettiest one, but my friend, the one who was not afraid and always came to walk beside me in the coop or in the yard, the one who learned early on that I was not a small man, but a young boy, just as afraid as she was of me and always talking quietly and providing generous amounts of food. I always put more in the bucket than my aunt. Yes, I was a young boy, quiet and gentle, but very nervous. You see, chickens are nervous creatures. I guess we would always be nervous too if your life, your very existence, was a day-to-day thing. Never knowing when your time is up. Wait! What am I saying?! OMG! Our time IS day-to-day….and we never know when our time is up either! Our plight is the same as the chickens’!

Anyway, never believe that a chicken is helpless. They will hurt you if they can, though they cannot fly far. Since they’re being raised as food … they’re pretty ‘chubby’. When a chicken is being ‘singled out’…picked for dinner….they can be very defensive. A chicken can be very evasive and, when finally cornered and tired of running and flopping, when feeling truly threatened…that life is on the line, will fight…even the smallest of them will scratch you up. They will peck on your body and make you bleed…and you should get a tetanus shot. Chickens are not very sanitary animals. Strange somehow, that their eggs are so perfectly sterile INSIDE. Anyway, let’s not discuss that aspect of chickens.

It was those chickens in my Grandpa’s coop that established, for my entire life thus far, a belief that mammals and birds have souls; and, that just as there are undoubtedly many souls out there who are ‘higher’ and a ‘better’ soul than you or I, there are also ‘lower’ and ‘worse’ souls; and that is true all the way down the scale of life….until you get to bugs. We all know bugs don’t have souls…..anymore than weeds do. Now, flowers might…especially the orchids and chrysanthemums. Now that I think about it, fish may not have souls either…and reptiles….and amphibians.

Oops! I prattled on, didn’t I?

So, not knowing the honor to be bestowed upon her, I picked my ‘friend’ from among the chickens. Lucy – that was the name my Aunt had given her - would stand by the chicken wire gate when she saw me approach the coop with the bucket. She would cluck rapidly. She would resist temptation to run after the seed I threw to the others and had learned to patiently wait, always standing right beside me. Then, after the others had been fed, I had saved her enough for her own special little pile of seed. She would follow me as I put that seed in the corner of the coop where she would not be disturbed. She would allow me to stroke her feathers as she pecked at the seed. That’s about as sweet as a chicken gets and it was especially nice for a boy of 4 with no other children with whom to play. I was proud that she was easy to catch and was quietly allowing me to carry her to the back porch. I thought she was kinda pretty too. She was an evenly ‘muckled’ chestnut brown and white hen, a little bigger than the others. Maybe she was the ‘matron’ of the chicken community, having lasted longer than any others without being ‘picked’….I don’t really know.

Little did I know, as my Aunt took my hapless friend I had handpicked, that she would be EATEN in about 2 hours. In abject horror, I watched my Aunt expeditiously chop off Lucy's head with no hesitation, no remorse. I watched in horror Lucy's headless body running aimlessly around the back yard. I was more than just angry with my Grandpa and Aunt for several weeks. Aunt Mary cried because I would not talk to her. To my way of thinking, they had made me ‘capture’ my friend. Hell! Any chicken would have filled the pan!... and all so Grandpa could have his wings, necks, liver and gizzards….that’s what he always said he preferred. I’ve since figured that, since he was the 9th of 9 boys, he had learned that ‘scraps’ are good too. Don’t think he really ever had a choice. Adaptation is one of the keys to life. Always try to be successful in the surroundings to which you subjected. Later in life, as a ‘frequently transferred’ service brat, I believe that lesson served me very well. However, ‘successful’ does not necessarily mean rich, famous and/or powerful. If one can survive a meager life and die with two things: friends and peace of mind; then he is as rich as any who have passed this way.

Then, one day, Grandpa sat on the porch with me explained the role of chickens on God’s earth. He said he was very sorry I had picked my ‘friend’, that he didn’t know I even had a ‘friend’. He said it made him sad because animal friends are worth almost as much as people friends. He was surprised when I told him I didn’t know the chickens were also ‘eating’ chickens, not just egg layers. Then he told me something I’ve never forgotten: “Buzz, there are people that eat dogs.” That was all it took for me. I ran into the house, screaming, “Momma. Momma. Aunt Ruth! Grandpa says were gonna eat Bosco! They all got a chuckle out of that…until, a little later, when I asked, “Aunt Mary, will Bosco taste good? You said Lucy did.” The room fell quiet. Finally, my one of my aunts, with a small tear in her eye, said, “Honey, we’re not going to eat Bosco…ever.” I gave her a hug and went outside to play with Bosco. I picked a new chicken friend too, but she was never as smart as Lucy. I doubt if she was as tasty either.

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