Feature Story
By Mark Reasons
22 Jan 2009
Just wanted to tell you a story that happened when I was 11. You see, my family & I had hardly any money and being the only white kids growing up in Orange Mound -Memphis was always fun but that is another issue. A week before Thanksgiving one year my grandmother who was a simple insane Cajun lady drove up from New Orleans to see us. When she pulled up into the drive I was excited to see her because she had called earlier to let me know that she had a big surprise for the whole family.
Unfortunately for the family, her idea of a surprise was to drive up with a live Turkey in the back seat. She popped out of the car as she smiled with her four teeth showing obviously proud to have a driven eight hours in her Gremlin with a Turkey raising hell in the back seat.
She had forgotten that we had a dog for a pet as most kids in orange mound should if they want to keep their bicycle. Those of you old enough to remember a time before having a clothes dryers will remember the clothesline poles in the back yard..... that's where we tied the Turkeys left leg. For four days, my dog and the Turkey played ring around the rosy. Needless to say by the time my step father and I had to go to the back yard to cut the head off the Turkey the back yard looked like someone had set off an M80 firecracker inside a feather pillow. The bird had no ass feathers left.
Since the Turkey needed to have it's head cut off and we didn't own anything like an axe or hatchet, my step-dad made me hold the turkey down while he attempted to hack it's head off with a rusty golf club that we used for grilling out over a three legged hibachi. I won't go into any detail but if you ever saw pulp fiction, you know what kind of backyard shower I got after all of the commotion.
We took the bird downtown to get what was left of it defeathered. The guy at the processing plant actually asked my step dad if we had found the Turkey on the side of the road or if we were the ones that ran it over. Regardless of all that trauma, when the Turkey was cooked and placed on the table, we hade more dark meat than ever before mostly because of all the bruises and I got the drum stick (right leg) and my brother got what should have been a drum stick (left leg) which was 1/2 the size due to the ring around the rosy fun my dog had.
I still remember my Cajun grandmother's toothless smile as she drove away in her turkey butt smelling gremlin because she had given me another mental scar to remember forever.
Happy T day !
