I don't think I ever told you the funny story about my Dad winning a turkey when I was a kid in Winnie, Texas.  Each year at Thanksgiving, when you went to the movies, your ticket was put into a box and they drew tickets for prizes.  The prizes were live turkeys (with feathers and all).  The year that Daddy took me to the movies was the year that he won a free turkey.  He was always lucky, so no one was surprised.

I had hoped we would just go home with his turkey, but he liked the comedy that was playing, so we stayed until the end of the show.  Here he sat with that live turkey on his lap and me sitting next to him.  I was so embarrassed!

Now is a good time to tell you, too, about why I am afraid of chickens.  Yes, chickens!  When I was really little, my cousin Warren made me put my hand under a mean old setting hen, and I have been scared of chickens ever since.
And we also had a big rooster in our chicken yard at home that seemed to love to chase me around in the yard.  My Daddy gave him away, but that old rooster found his way back home.

I never explained to Aunt Dee about my chicken-phobia.  When I visited with them during the summer, I shared chores with my cousin Gradie Rae, and it was my job to go out into the chicken yard to feed the table scraps to the flock.  Aunt Dee found out that I was just throwing the scraps over the fence. She really fussed at me, but I still wouldn't go into that chicken yard.
 

Shirley Broussard Willett
 

Sunday, 1 December 2002