Shades of Childhood

Although my dad was born and raised in the city, he lived on a farm. In 1908 when he was five, his parents built their family home on 41^st Avenue South, just off Lake Street in rural Minneapolis. Their outbuildings included a garage for the Model T, a barn for the cow, a coop for the chickens, and a garden shed. Dad’s father was a printer who worked downtown for the Tribune Newspaper. His mother was a housewife, which meant she kept the garden, canned the vegetables, milked the cow, gathered the eggs, and killed the chickens for Sunday dinner. As Dad grew older many of these responsibilities fell upon his shoulders.

To paraphrase an old saying, you can take the boy off the farm but you can’t take the farm out of the boy. When Mom and Dad married they built a house in Nordeast Minneapolis. During various summers Dad had a garden in the backyard, a garden across the street, a garden in the suburbs, a garden across town, a garden in the country, etc. I was his gardening assistant, as I preferred digging in the dirt to helping Mom clean and cook.

I thought it would be a lot of fun to have a chicken coop in the back yard like the neighbor down the street, but Dad preferred to purchase his chickens live from somebody else’s farm. He was a great believer in fresh meat, and while I sympathized with the hapless hens trussed up in our basement waiting for the ax, I have to admit they were a mighty tasty item on the Sunday dinner menu.

One year he came upon a deal that was too good to pass up. A local farmer had an underweight turkey that he was willing to let Dad have for a bargain price. Since we would soon be in need of a turkey (it getting to be close to Thanksgiving time and all that), Dad struck a deal with the farmer and brought the bird home to fatten it up.

The dog had abandoned its house in the back yard long ago when it left for unknown reasons. Its old doghouse was the perfect size for our scrawny Thanksgiving Day turkey. Dad shoved the bird through the doorway and nailed slats every which way across the opening, leaving room at the top for the turkey to poke its head out and enjoy the view, and room at the bottom to shove in a dish of corn and some water.

I was designated "Keeper Of The Turkey." It was my job to feed and water it every morning and every evening. I felt honored. After all, how many girls my age had an opportunity to make friends with a turkey? The turkey, however, did not appreciate my efforts to establish a warm and loving relationship, even though it would be of short duration. And it took exception to my attempts to minister to its needs, mercilessly pecking my fingers every time I poked the food and water in through the bottom of its makeshift cage. More corn ended up scattered on the ground outside the turkey coop than inside. However, I steadfastly honored my commitment and took to wearing gloves and Band-Aids. After all, this was to be our Thanksgiving Day dinner.

Thanksgiving week brought two surprises. We woke one morning to a beautiful snow that had fallen the night before, and to the sight of our Thanksgiving turkey strutting around the backyard, obviously enjoying its newly won freedom.

"Clarence!" my mom yelled to my father who hadn’t yet gotten out of bed. "The turkey’s loose!"

Dad peeled out of that bedroom faster than a speed skater on a banana skin. Throwing a coat over his pajamas and shoes on his feet, he raced for the back door, barreled outside, and commenced chasing that turkey from one end of the backyard to the other, skidding and slipping over icy patches of snow much to the amusement of the bystanders who had gathered to watch the show. Arms and wings outstretched Dad and turkey faced off, dancing round and round each other in a sort of surreal turkey trot. Finally, Dad saw his chance and with a flying leap that would do an NFL linebacker proud, he tackled that turkey.

When we came home from school that afternoon, there was fresh blood on the snow under the clothes pole where Dad had dispatched the bird. Although, by the end of its fattening up period the turkey was considerably more underweight than it had been originally, it tasted delicious.