Memory Lane

I did not realize how long it had been since the last post - apologies. I forgot one got "eaten" by the internet one night in a hotel. I thought some more memories might be in order - "Give ya a quarter for a peek at those." Man if I had a dime for every time I heard that one. Another memorable summer was the one I spent with my Uncle Pierce. He was a strange little man that was quite disagreeable. Of course some of that angst may have been from his job. Pierce was a chicken sexer. (yes, even in the age of computers, that is a real job - look it up) Pierce spent his eight working hours looking at chicken butts. Through some magic of prodding and observance he could tell if the chick was Al or Alice. This "talent" was of no use in the real world and made Uncle Pierce a bit mean and cranky most of the time. (he also had a bad habit of taking babies and looking in their diapers - hey, thinking back on that - he was weird!) Not much happened that summer. There was not much I could do to help Uncle Pierce in his job, so I just hung out. We were in a small town in Arkansas. There were millions more chickens in the county than people, so not a lot was going on. I caught lightening bugs, fished, threw rocks at stray dogs, etc. (all the cool small town Arkansas stuff). It was pretty bland. Until "that day". One day a man came into the chicken house with a shotgun. He started shooting. Uncle Pierce took two direct hits to the chest and died instantly along with about six hundred chicks. Wow, what a mess. We never did know why the guy did it as the six dobermans that lived behind the barn pretty much ate the guy. I took my unicycle and left Arkansas forever.