Every
year as Thanksgiving Day approaches, I always think back to the wild turkeys
that used to show up on my property every morning to clean up whatever the
birds dropped out of the bird feeder.
The first time the turkeys arrived – two really big males and three hens – I stared at them in awe through the kitchen window.
That’s because before we moved out
to the middle of nowhere, the only turkeys I’d ever seen up close were in
supermarkets and had “Butterball” printed on them.
I was fascinated watching the turkeys and learning about their habits. One thing I learned that really surprised me, however, happened one morning when I let my dogs out into the yard without checking first. The second the turkeys spotted the dogs, they all took flight up into the nearest pine trees.
Up until then, thanks to a 1978 episode of a TV show called WKRP in Cincinnati, I'd always believed turkeys couldn't fly. In that particular episode, called "Turkeys Away," the radio station, as part of a Thanksgiving promotion, dropped live turkeys (which were meant to be prizes) from a helicopter into a shopping center. The newsman covering the event gasped out something like, "The turkeys are crashing to the ground right in front of my eyes!" and the station manager groaned, "I swear, I thought turkeys could fly."
Anyway,
one day, as the aforementioned two males and three hens were merrily pecking away
at the seeds underneath my feeder, a new male, a loner, approached the group.
He looked scrawny compared to the other two males, and he also had a prominent
limp. Still, he didn’t seem easily intimidated when one of the big males
attempted to scare him off. No, that scrawny, limping turkey stood his ground
and was prepared to fight back.
So eventually the group allowed him to hang out with them.
My husband started calling him Chester, in honor of one of his favorite characters on the old TV show Gunsmoke (for those of you who are too young to remember Gunsmoke, Deputy Chester Goode was a main character who had a bad leg and hobbled around Dodge City).
I enjoyed watching Chester (the turkey), especially in his efforts to attract one of the hens. I suspected he might have sensed she was the odd female out…that the other two hens already had claimed the two big males as theirs, so she was fair game.
Every time she walked by Chester, he’d fan out his tail, puff out his chest and strut around with his wings dragging on the ground. And every time he did, she completely ignored him. The minute she’d walk off, leaving him standing there, he’d deflate like a punctured balloon. His chest would go flat, his fanned-out tail would droop and his head would hang. It was a pretty sad sight.
“I feel bad for poor Chester,” I said to my husband. “He tries every single morning to get the attention of one of the hens and she just snubs him. Do you think she’s rejecting him just because he has a limp?”
“Nah,” my husband said. “She’s probably just playing hard to get.”
A few days later, Chester showed up looking as if he’d been attacked by a gang of thugs. His tail feathers were sticking out at odd angles, one wing was drooping, and his limp was even more pronounced. I wondered if maybe he’d tried to get too friendly with the hen of his dreams and she’d retaliated by beating him up…either that, or he’d been hit by a car.
Still, even in his pathetic-looking condition, Chester continued to show off in front of the hen…and she continued to act as if he were invisible.
It took another few days, but early one morning something strange happened. Chester, as usual, was trying to capture his beloved hen’s attention, when she suddenly walked over to him and stretched out on the ground right in front of him. I had no idea what her actions meant, so I rushed to my computer and looked up information on turkeys’ body language.
“When a hen is ready to breed with a gobbler,” it said, “she often will lie down on her stomach in front of him and wiggle her tail as a signal.”
I was so excited, I woke up my husband. “Chester’s finally going to get lucky!” I shouted as I burst into the bedroom. “His persistence finally paid off! I’m so thrilled for him!”
My husband apparently didn’t share my sentiment. “Please tell me you’re not planning to videotape the event,” he muttered, then rolled over and went back to sleep.
I didn’t see Chester or the hen for quite a while after that. I started to worry that maybe Chester accidentally had killed her in a fit of pent-up passion, or maybe she had died during childbirth (egg birth?).
But one morning, to my surprise and delight, out of the woods strutted Chester, the hen and eight little ones (a.k.a. “poults”). I was so happy for the new family, I felt like throwing a party for them.
Once again, I woke up my husband.
“We’re surrogate grandparents! Chester’s girlfriend had babies!”
This time, he actually climbed out of bed to join me at the window. Just as he did, Chester lowered his head and charged at the hen when she tried to get too close to him while he was eating.
“Hmph! Look at that!” I said. “Now that she’s had his kids, he’s chasing her away!”
“I told you he wanted her only because she was playing hard to get,” my husband said. “He’s probably bored now.” He stared at Chester for a moment before he added, “You know, fatherhood really seems to be agreeing with him, though. He’s filled out a lot. I wonder how much he weighs now?”
I narrowed my eyes at my husband. “You’re picturing him smothered in gravy, aren’t you?”
He chuckled. “I plead the fifth. I’m going back to bed now.”
The last time I saw any turkeys on my land was over four years ago. I often wonder what happened to Chester and his little family, especially during this time of year.
But unlike my late husband did, when I think about Chester, I’m not picturing him roasted and lying on a turkey platter on the Thanksgiving table.
# # #
Sally Breslin is an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science-fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.
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