Night of the great chicken raid:<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0The following is a true story.\u00a0 The names have not been changed to protect the innocent, because none of us were. There were about a dozen of us, perhaps more, ranging in ages from 8 to 15 years.\u00a0 Among the younger ones were Roger White, Darrell Kuhen, Lee Roy Riter and myself.\u00a0 The older boys were Jack Anderson (ringleader), Roger Sapp, Hubert Morris and Greg Clark.\u00a0 I believe Lyle Knapp, Dewey Morris and several others whose names and faces now have the advantage of escaping my memory were part of the midrange group.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We found ourselves wandering aimlessly on country roads between Endicott and Morris Run that night.\u00a0 I no longer recall whether it was a dissipating birthday party, church meeting, or some other function that had drawn us together.\u00a0 Our impromptu army, awash in clouds of premature testosterone was, no doubt made possible by a lack of l\u2019odeour de la femme<\/em> to follow on this particular occasion.\u00a0 The result was a curiously dangerous crowd without a shred of intelligence among us to limit our imagination.\u00a0 We were the perfect storm of \u201cMollie McGuires\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We younger members were not of sufficient rank to make decisions regarding where and with whom we would wreak havoc, only whether or no we could tag along.\u00a0 Our alternative was to go home and keep our mouths shut.\u00a0 Given the wisdom our limited years had imparted to us, that wasn\u2019t even an option.\u00a0 Of course, we would tag along, common sense and the Devil be damned.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Our management team decided that we were collectively hungry and in order to acquit ourselves as men tonight, something must die for our consumption.\u00a0 Stealing apples from a farmer\u2019s orchard would scarcely qualify as a crime, nor would watermelons from his garden.\u00a0 Tonight we would be felons, shedding blood and cooking fresh meat by light of the moon.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Wild game would not fill the bill because it runs too fast.\u00a0 The same applied to sheep in an open field.\u00a0 Cows were too large for even our group to consume in one sitting; besides, if we accidently tapped a bull for our victim, life might suddenly become more tenuous than even we were comfortable with.\u00a0 We were bold, brave, and modestly stupid.\u00a0 We were not, however, insane.\u00a0 We would dine upon fowl before morning, specifically chickens, the domestic variety stolen from a local farmer.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Our benefactor would be George Morris.\u00a0 His chicken coop was near the road.\u00a0 His domicile was fifty yards beyond the coop.\u00a0 We could grab a pair of cluckers and run before he knew what was happening.\u00a0 Even if he came out armed with the proverbial shotgun, his son, Dewey was one of us and might be able to persuade his dad to hold fire.\u00a0 Chickens are easy to collect at night and make little noise if captured properly.\u00a0 Our acquisition team was not up to the task.\u00a0 The very trees in the valley shook with shrieks of terrified Rhode Island Reds while neighborhood hills echoed with panic.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Suddenly; there was George, shotgun in one hand, lantern in the other.\u00a0 A kerosene lantern only casts a spray of light about ten or twelve feet and its effect is not to shed light upon the target, but the gunner. \u00a0As I stood there wondering if George would suddenly start emptying that blunderbuss in our direction, it occurred to me just how well defended those old hillbilly farms were.\u00a0 I also realized that the older boys were as cowardly as I.\u00a0 One of them began to stammer whatever excuse he could think of just when George interrupted him.\u00a0 \u201cIf you boys just want a couple of roosters to cook, you should\u2019ve asked me.\u00a0 I\u2019ll help you catch them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Suitably chastened, we walked down the road for about a mile with our semi-stolen meal when one of the boys produced a Zippo and lit a fire.\u00a0 Someone else found a pocket knife and there was some discussion if it were an appropriate tool for beheading.\u00a0 An axe would have been cleaner and faster, but no one had thought to bring one.\u00a0 Dewey said there was no way in Hell that he would go back and ask his father for one.\u00a0 Greg Clark came to the rescue.\u00a0 He showed us how to wring a chicken\u2019s neck.\u00a0 It worked.\u00a0 Grab the chicken by the head and neck with your thumb pointing towards its body.\u00a0 Swing your arm hard in circles a few times and the whole chicken will fly off leaving the head and upper neck in your clenched fist.\u00a0 It was surprisingly fast and quiet.\u00a0 Greg said it was also painless, but we all knew better.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The feathers were sort of pulled off.\u00a0 The birds were sort of eviscerated and then sort of hacked up, all with that same stubby pocket knife.\u00a0 The parts were then distributed to the rest of the gang, who put them on sticks and burned them on the open fire without so much as salt and pepper.\u00a0 At some point, I volunteered my share of the feast to anyone that would take it and sauntered home alone.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The experience put me off chicken (no matter how well seasoned and prepared) for a long time.\u00a0 It would be some years before the other boys would admit just how horrible those things tasted.\u00a0 It would be longer still before most of them would admit to wetting their pants at the silhouette of George and his twelve gauge in the lantern light.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Night of the great chicken raid: \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0The following is a true story.\u00a0 The names have not been changed to protect the innocent, because none of us were. There were about a dozen of us, perhaps more, ranging in ages from 8 to 15 years.\u00a0 Among the younger ones were Roger White, Darrell Kuhen, Lee […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21813\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}