Don't be chicken.......

When I was a little girl I stayed at my Grandmother Wallaces' house a lot.  I remember how hot it was when I played outside.  The grass was brown and dry and there were a million grass burs.  I mostly stayed in the back yard where there was some shade and the dirt driveway saved me from the grass burs.  I would pretend the butane tank was a horse and I would ride it through the hills and vales of my imagination.  Grandmother would bring out a basket of wet clothes and I would help her pin the clothes on the line.

I'll never forget the time Granddaddy brought home several crates of live chickens.  I watched as my grandmother, who I thought was so sweet, reach in that crate and pull out a chicken by it's neck.  I assumed that was the way to do it if you didn't want to get pecked to death.  What she did after that would haunt me for the rest of my life.  I saw that chicken twirl around and around......with Grandmother's hand firmly around it's neck.  She looked like she was cranking an old hooptie car!  It looked funny at first until the body flopped away from it's head.......that was still in her hand!!  I was mortified!!!

We helped pluck the feathers from the chickens and they were cleaned, butchered, and prepared for the freezer.  After that, eating fried chicken was a bitter sweet experience.  I visualized myself coughing and feathers flying out of my mouth.  Or going to sleep at night by counting flopping, headless chickens instead of sheep.  A giggle would turn into a wide eyed sleepless night.

There was an old saying back then when someone was misbehaving, "I'm going to wring your neck!"  Seeing that headless chicken put a whole new meaning to that phrase.  If I didn't like fried chicken so much I think that experience would have made a vegetarian out of me!  I'm just sayin.......