Turkey Tales

Turkeys deserve to be eaten.  Forget for the moment that they are delicious; they also lack pleasing personalities to make up for their clear lack of physical attractiveness.  They are also aggressive brutes and my encounter with a pack of them when I was about 13 has been providing my sons with gleeful amusement at my expense.

When I was a kid, I often went to the beach with my friend RH and her dad.  Mr. H. had relatives who owned a prawn farm and we visited several times.  Besides the prawn pond, the family also owned a large tract of land that was cultivated near the house but wild and scrubby on the outer reaches.  To us city kids, it was a wonderful place to ramble.

One of our visits coincided with prawn harvest.  We spent much longer at the farm then on previous occasions, watching in fascination as RH's cousins pulled in the nets and shot at birds that swooped from the skies in search of an easy meal.  RH, another friend FT, and I returned to the house to find RH's aunt feeding 5 large, gray birds.  At the time, I did not know they were turkeys as I had never seen juveniles before.  Young or no, these birds were big specimens; husky and tall!  I was about 5'5" at the time and these birds easily reached to my waist. 

We received a few slices of bread and continued to scatter bites for the birds to eat.  They were placid enough...until all the bread was gone.  They didn't seem to believe that we had nothing left to give them and decided the situation warranted a closer look.  There was something menacing in their slow advance and the suspicious intelligence reflected in those beady black eyes.  When they were several feet away, they suddenly seemed taller; their wings began to move away from their sides, feathers around the neck began to mantle.

I don't remember who broke first.  All I know is suddenly the three of us were screaming and running down the hill as fast as we could with five shrieking, flapping turkeys in hot pursuit.  Mr. H's truck was parked at the bottom of the hill and we all leaped into the back as one.  The turkeys (fortunately) did not leap into the bed but continued to circle the vehicle, wings out, squawking in triumph.  RH's aunt, dad, and cousins could not stop laughing.  And ever since I told them the story, neither can my sons.

That was a long time ago but interestingly enough, Thanksgiving has become my favorite cooking/eating holiday.  I guess the saying is true:  Revenge is sweet...Happy Thanksgiving!  Gobble, gobble! ;-)