PEEP PEEP BABY CHICKS
During the 50s and 60s, the arrival of Easter and the spring season created a fervor of activities for my family and, in their wake, a host of memories—colorfully dyed eggs, the Easter parade in the downtown square, cuddly inquisitive bunnies with their twitching noses and soft fur, Easter egg hunts in our backyard, the scent of Mother’s honeysuckle blooming, the smell of ham baking in the oven on Easter Sunday, and those adorable, peeping baby chicks.
It's a safe bet that most kids who grew up in the 50s and 60s received sweet, little peeping chicks at Easter. As a promotional tool to bring women to their stores, local grocers offered free baby chicks to children when mothers shopped for groceries at their stores. My younger brother and I passed the grocery store as we walked to and from school each day. One spring day, we heard the baby chicks peeping from inside the crates stored outside at the rear of the store making us keenly aware of the baby chicks’ arrival. Since going with Mom to the grocery store wasn’t something we typically did, we knew we’d have to plead our case for our own baby chick with Mom. Who better to do so than my younger brother with his irresistible smile and whimsical boyhood charm?
“Mom, Mom!” My brother tugged on Mom’s shirt sleeve to get her attention. “Did you know the baby chicks have arrived at Landers?”
“Hmm….is that right. How so?”
“Yes! Sara and I saw them on the way home from school, and….and,” he couldn’t contain his excitement. “I saw a blue one that’s perfect for me! Pleeease, Mom, may we get baby chicks?”
“Well, I don’t know, Eddie. They’re awfully messy and make lots of noise.”
“We’ll put them in shoeboxes so they won’t make a mess in the house. We’ll make sure they get plenty of water and feed. Promise. Pleeease!”
“I’m not spending money on special baby chick feed. It’s too expensive. You’ll have to make your own.”
“We will, Mama, we will!” he shouted, bouncing from foot to foot.
“Well,” she paused momentarily, “alright. We’ll go to Landers tomorrow after school.”
“Hooray!” We held hands and jumped around in a circle together.
After school the next day, we walked with Mom from our home to Landers Grocery Store with our shoeboxes tucked underneath our arms. We ran ahead of her wishing she’d pick up the pace, but no amount of running ahead would nudge Mom away from her deliberate, steady pace. Once inside she picked up a few things she needed and checked out.
“Time to pick out your baby chicks,” Mr. Landers said as he placed Mom’s items in a brown paper sack. “Come with me to the back of the store.”
We rushed to the rear of the store, bending over the crates looking for the perfect baby chick.
“I want this blue one right here,” Eddie said, pointing to one particular blue chick huddled in the corner.
“What about you, darlin’?” Mr. Landers asked. “You look like a ‘pink chick’ gal to me.”
“No, sir. I like yellow better than pink. A yellow one, please.”
He scooped the tiny chick into his hands, gently placing it in my shoebox. All the way home, I stroked my chick’s tiny yellow feathers wishing it would stay a chick forever.
Eddie and I made our baby chick feed, a mashed together concoction of hard-boiled eggs and oatmeal, placing it inside an egg flat we’d place in each shoebox. Within a few days, our chicks, Beryl and Sunny, had mastered eating and drinking, peeping constantly, even at night, evidently because they missed their ‘mama.’ We tried holding them in our hands to comfort them. They would quieten down for a few minutes, but when we placed the chicks back in their shoeboxes, they immediately began peeping. Suddenly our baby chicks were no longer cute; they were annoying! In desperation we built a little nest in one shoebox and put them together, figuring they were lonely and would like being around one another. Wah-lah. Blessed sleep!
Over time, Beryl and Sunny outgrew their shoeboxes and had to be moved outside into a makeshift chicken coup that Dad helped us make. As they matured, both Beryl and Sunny became completely white. At this point the novelty of our baby chicks, now turned clucking chickens, had completely worn off. Luckily for us, Mr. Buhler, an old farmer, lived across the street from us in a decrepit farmhouse, the only remnant of the time when our neighborhood was part of his vast cotton fields. Eddie and I walked across the street with our madly clucking chickens in our hands and offered them to him.
Fortunately, old man Buhler was more than willing to take Beryl and Sunny off our hands saying, “These will make for some mighty good eatin’,” he said, smacking his lips. “Sure, I’ll take ‘em.”
Eddie and I silently walked home, both of us staring down at our empty hands. I bit my lip unable to speak, upset with the notion that Beryl and Sunny would soon become fried chicken on Mr. Buhler’s plate.
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