August 3, 2005

  • Thursday, 4 August 2005


    10.00 a.m. NZ time


     


    My Grandmother Lucy


     


     


    When I was growing up we always had chickens in our backyard. Always had fresh eggs and occasionally we would have fried chicken. I still love fried chicken. But one day I was out watching my grandmother in the chicken coop; she was chasing the chickens all around their pen until finally she caught one. I didn’t know what she was up to, so I was watching her real close. She came out of the chicken yard, locked the gate, took that chicken’s head in her right hand, and started spinning that chicken, flip, flip, flip and flammo, she flung that chicken half way across the backyard. Then she dropped the chicken’s head in a bucket and went back into the house.


     


    I thought, “wait a minute here,” and I ran over looking into the bucket.  There it was, the chicken’s head, still blinking its eyes. I mean I could still see the chicken over on the other side of the yard, all flapping its wings and scratching in the dirt, kicking up dust and stuff. So I picked the chicken’s head up out of the bucket, ran over to where its body was flopping around and tried to stick the chicken’s head back on its neck. I thought, “grandmother broke the chicken,” so I was trying to fix it back the way it was. But it wouldn’t stick on, it just kept falling off. It wasn’t blinking its eyes any more, and it finally stopped flapping and twitching.


     


    About that time my grandmother came out with a bigger bucket, filled with scalding hot water, picked up the chicken by its feet and dunked it down into that scalding water. Then she pulled it out of the water and started ripping the feathers off in big handfuls. It wasn’t long before the chicken didn’t have a feather left on its body. Then she took a sharp kitchen knife and sliced open the chicken’s stomach, out came all this weird looking stuff and she dumped it into the bucket the head had been in. Later she dug a hole and buried it somewhere out along the back fence.


     


    That was the last I saw of the chicken until that evening when I sat down at the dinner table, and there she was, all toasty golden brown, surrounded with bowls and platters filled with smashed potatoes and gravy, string beans and corn on the cob, a big tossed green salad and my grandmother’s fresh baked apple pie.


     


    I loved my grandmother, she could do anything. I carry her memory in my heart, she is a part of who I am, but someday, in the not too distant future, I know I’ll get to see her again. Is that cool or what?


     


    There’s lots more stories, but that’s it for today.


     


    I’ll be back ………… (Maybe)


     


    BMcG