I get no respect. When you call somebody a turkey, you are denigrating me. But don't you know that I am a dinosaur? That I am a survivor, although smaller than those monsters you worship? That I am just as wylie and cunning as those who went extinct 65 million years ago?
I was here before you and I will be here after you're gone. I have ranged over the entire world and carved out a niche in the wilderness that is comparable to only a few species. Those earlier occupiers of the North American continent worshiped me. They used my feathers, talons and bones for many useful and decorative purposes. They honored me in their dances and rituals. Preserved the forest and fields that I roamed. I wish they still ruled this land.
But the loud ones came from across the sea. With their thunder sticks that frightened me with their noise and took so many of us so quickly we could not thrive. I hid but they took away my trees, my brush, the water that I drank. They tried to kill us all and almost did 100 years ago. Finally, they came to their senses and provided me at least time to reproduce before their relentless hunting of me begins again each fall.
But I digress. My speed, my color, and my cunning, are all finely honed as a result of my natural aggressive nature--my fighting ability. We males all fight during mating season. Only the strongest get the opportunity to mate with a harem of up to forty loving hens ensuring that future generations will be only the strongest. The result is that I am more than twice the size of my mother hens, sleek and iridescent. I strut proudly and fly like the wind. If necessary, I run almost as fast.
But my passionate nature is also my downfall, for you have clearly imitated my fighting call and lure me in with your boastful challenge. My best and brightest fall to your birdshot each year. Still, I was honored when you included me in your first feast of plenty among fish, waterfowl, deer, squirrel, rabbit and other fruits and vegetables from the garden.
But even that feast, supposedly of Thanksgiving, caused you to domesticate my breed and change my colors to white to match your liking. You have confined these cousins of mine to buildings, all crowded and unsanitary with no room to move, no mating, no chick rearing, no future except to overeat, get pumped full of antibiotics and steroids, and then killed to be frozen and shipped to the table. What a disgrace of my noble purpose! Worst of all, they debeak me and cut off my fighting talons!
To add insult to injury, so many despise my wonderful meat as though it were a pariah. They say it is too dry, overcooked or undercooked. They adulterate it with cranberry sauce or catsup, refuse the leftovers and sometimes, leave them to turn green in the refrigerator--a disgusting waste.
I despise the jokes and cartoons about me. Coming in second to the bald eagle as the national bird and laughed at as though I were unintelligent and awkward. They have turkey shoots and sing about the "Turkey in the Straw." As though I might enjoy being a farm animal.
I understand that through all the crowding and genetic manipulating my cousins have become decimated by avian flu and I have become so elusive that I am very hard to shoot. So, hopefully, you will stop insulting me and, in future Thanksgiving day celebrations you will pick on some other animals like pigs, goats, cows, and geese and leave us turkeys to ourselves once more.
Copyright © Tom Turkey
Translated by Ronald W. Hull
11/25/15
Love ya!
Jane
You, too, Ron.
If Ben Franklin had his way, the turkey would be our national bird. He felt the turkey was courageous in comparison to the bald eagle he thought a coward.
I hear ya, Tom: since the days when you roamed and strutted freely, we've befouled turkeys. However, for Thanksgiving, you're my go-to white meat-- not a pig, chicken, or some lame duck!
John