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Temporary Pets And Sunday Dinner

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 12, 2008

Updated: 10/13/2008 10:44 am

My earliest days are saturated with memories of cackling chickens. In 1951, my father bought a farm near Wood River, Ill. He kept his job as a laborer for the Shell Oil Refinery, but he built a chicken coop and raised a colony of Plymouth Rocks, Rhode Island Reds and Leghorns.

My mother sold eggs and occasionally butchered my pets for Sunday dinner. These were no "Silence of the Lambs" moments for me. I must have lacked empathy at age 5, but I was never inclined to throw my body in front of the doomed chicken.

Perhaps I'd learned to take it in stride. I remember eating roast duck for Easter dinner one year. I went out to play and couldn't find my favorite duck. I asked my father what happened to Quacky, and he replied, "You just ate him!" Devastating. My father was very Old World when it came to sentimentality and pets.

Neighbors debated the merits of decapitating fowls with axes and butcher knives, but most preferred simply wringing their necks.

Visions of my mother patiently plucking the chicken - and the accompanying smell of wet feathers - remain indelibly imprinted in my memory. The smells and sounds of chicken splattering and sputtering in Crisco always take me back to 1953.

Gary R. Mormino

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