I went home last weekend. Friday night I went out with friends, and it was a big time. It was great to see J.R. and Mary Beth and all my other MCG friends. Otis and Caleb were in town and ended up spending the night at my house because they didn’t want to sleep on Stephen’s floor.
Saturday morning my mom cooked us sausage swirls and grits and we layed on the couches and watch Police Academy – the first one – which is really one of the most inappropriate movies I have ever seen, but very funny. Then we sat in the Adirondack chairs outside under the pergola, because it was 70 and breezy and sunny. Then the boys went to play golf, and I read Gone With the Wind for a while.
In the late afternoon, my dad called. He had been out in south Augusta, and had stopped at a flea market. (I used to think my brother and I were strange and our parents were normal, but the older I get, the more normal Travers and I appear, and the stranger my parents get).
Daddy: "Guess what I bought at the flea market?"
Me (worried, knowing it could be anything): Uhh, what?
Daddy: "A bantam trio."
Me: "Huh?"
Daddy: "A bantam rooster and two hens to go with him."
Me: "What in the hell are you going to do with a rooster and two hens? It is illegal to have a rooster inside city limits."
Daddy: "I know, but the people down the street have one. Maybe I’ll put them in the backyard and let the dogs chase after them. He is a really pretty rooster, you should have seen him come at this cock fighting rooster. He is tough."
Me: "Oh, then I’m sure he won’t harm our sissy dogs."
Daddy: (chuckling) "Well, maybe I’ll put them at the river."
So Saturday afternoon, I went out to the river with my mom and dad and the bantam trio. My dad stopped at a gas station to get a few beers and to stuff some hay in the crate with the birds. Our river property is just into south carolina, north of north Augusta. It isn’t very far, but my dad likes to stop and show us stuff on the way, like houses he likes, and/or are being built through one of his projects. So my mom is convinced the birds have been smothered by the hay, and my dad agrees. I hate birds, so I refused to sit in the backseat of the car.
Well, the rooster was really pretty, not very big, but lots of different color feathers – all the colors you associate with thanksgiving – orange, yellow, gold, red, and feathers down his legs, like pantaloons. The hens were not that pretty. Of course, there is a fox out at the river, and chicken hawks, and a mess of other predators that would love to pick off a brightly colored flightless bird on the bank of the river. This distressed my mother, but once we put them out there, it would have taken us all night to catch them again. I suggested that my mom and I open a beer and watch my dad TRY to catch the chickens. I thought it would funny. But it was getting cold, so we had to leave them to fate. My mom felt like we were sacrificing the birds to the fox and that they wouldn’t make it though the night. I told her someone would have eaten them at some point in time. I don’t like birds.
Daddy went out to the river on Sunday and the chickens HAD made it through the night. But I talked to Daddy today, and he said the chickens were gone when he went out there yesterday. He said it doesn’t mean they were eaten, they might have just wandered off. But I have my bets on the fox for this one.
Update: Daddy said next time he is going to get ducks, or something more hearty. I guess show chickens aren’t meant for harsh reality.
the thin line between optimism and delusion... 