Cars, Farms, and Clown Horns

I was thinking about Thanksgiving today.  I love that holiday...probably my most favorite.  Its a holiday that I spend a week cooking for.  I have even become one of those people who soak their turkey in a salty brine.  But its not really the dinner or the holiday I was thinking about.  I was thinking about turkeys.  Wild and domestic.  I've had at least one experience with both.

The Wild Kind:

One late afternoon, I was driving back from grocery shopping, my groceries in the trunk and my daughter in her car seat.  As I came around the corner, I noticed a large turkey, a tom, standing on the side of the road, slightly tucked under the brush.  I stopped the car and backed it up to get a better look at him.  I noticed that he had a large growth on one of his legs and my heart broke for him.  I sat there for the longest time...trying to figure out how I could not only catch the turkey, but keep his wings from beating me and how I could get him in the car and keep him from injuring my 1 year old daughter.  It was a struggle.  I looked in the back seat and wondered....if there were any possible way that I could fit that fat tom back there.  I knew it was pointless, but it was difficult to admit that.  He didn't budge as I sat there looking at him from my driver's side window.  I told him I knew what turkeys could do, so I had to keep my bleeding heart under control.  The reality is that he would probably kick my behind and my daughter's, too and well, I couldn't take the chance.  After all of these years, close to 21 years ago, I still think about that turkey.  That big fat tom that quietly stood on the side of the road, tucked under the brush.

The Domestic Kind:

I grew up on a farm and my father thought it would be a good idea to introduce a white turkey to the menagerie of animals that we already had.  He was nice, I guess, for a turkey.  We never had a problem with him, he basically kept to himself until my 10th birthday party.  Everything changed after that party.

My father had set up a pony ride station in the back yard so my sisters, friends, and I could ride the ponies and my 2 uncles came dressed as clowns with all bells and whistles...and horns any clown could have.  I think the first time I noticed Tom's demeanor change was during my party when my younger uncle began to blow the horn.  The horn had a large red ball at the end of the horn that you squeezed which in turn pushed the air out.  Tom's reaction to the horn was tense.  At first his feathers puffed a bit and he began to look a bit stiff.  Walking around a bit...annoyed so it seemed.  

After the party, my father took the horn and honked it.  It was as if Tom had waited all day for this moment, this special time for him to display his dislike for this particular horn.  I'm not sure where he started flying from or where he intended to end up, but he was in (awkward) flight and heading for my father.  He was forever changed and I have to say...there were a couple of times...after that party that my sister and I took the horn outside for a 'test run' only to end up running, screaming, and crying to the basement door with Tom on our heels.  He once grabbed my sister's shirt with his feet and beat her with his wings.  I was a good distance away and so I felt safe to laugh at the situation, but my mother...poking her head out of the back door, saw my sister and yelled, like a slow motion moment in a movie on television "Ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun!' and so she ran.  Turkey clinging to her, still beating her with his wings.  I laughed.  I couldn't help myself.  I was attacked while eating a pb&j sandwich at the picnic table one afternoon, so I felt I had the right.  I loved that farm.

Note To Self:  Never put a turkey in your backseat with a one year old (no matter how pitiful it looks) and NEVER beep a clown horn at an annoyed turkey.