MY EASTER PEEPS

Every Easter I can’t help but think of the one when I was a kid and received some yellow peeps that weren’t made of marshmallow…

And then I back in Millville and its Good Friday and I'm shooting basketballs in the backyard when Pop pulls in the driveway in his Wheaton Company truck.  Instead of checking in with Nanny as is his customer when he comes home he immediately carries a cardboard box and hands it to me.  “Happy Easter son,” he says with a big smile.

The box is “peeping!”

“Be careful opening it,” he warns, as I carefully set it down, as if it were loaded with nitro.  I peek in and see a half dozen, yellow, fuzzy, frightened baby chicks.  “Oh pop, this is great.  Real Easter chicks.  Pop, thanks a lot,” I say, not imagining that in a few months I would be a day I would rue for a very long time.

Nanny had heard my squeals of delight and now was on the scene.  “Herb…what in the world are we going to do with these?”  Pop replied, “I’ll make a coop, don’t worry.”

And so, we spent Easter weekend with these yellow balls of fluff chirping day and night from there box in the shed.  (I wanted to have them sleep with me in my room but was out voted on this – mom said, they would stink up the house.

This tradition for my friends was to visit each other to “see and sample” our Easter baskets and everyone was so surprised when I showed them my peeps – they were the hit of the holiday.

After Easter dinner Pop and I started our chicken pen.  Pop made a small area of chicken wire and on Monday brought home a wooden box he made in work and our coop was ready for our chicks.  

We had no idea if we had hens or roosters.

In several weeks, the yellow fuzz was gone and feathers started to appear.  Pop said we had 4 hens and 2 roosters – a perfect number.  By now I had learned that Pop had found these chicks when he was taking a load of junk from the plant to the dump on the outskirts of town – some farmer had too many and dumped these poor guys along with a load of chicken manure.  

I was so glad Pop had saved them.

The spring vacation ended too soon and when I returned to school I found a book in the library that explained a lot about my new “pets”:

Some chickens are bred for meat production and lay few eggs; some are bred for egg production and can lay as often as once a day…Most hens will start laying between 5-7 months of age…Pet chickens that are properly cared for can live a relatively long time--longer than dogs, sometimes.

So, we would have to wait to find out if we would have eggs…as the mild days of spring turned to summer – the chicks grew and were no longer cute.  

I named my favorite and the biggest hen – Henny Penny. (Not very original I must admit) The roosters were Max and Marvin.   The rest of them were just “the hens”.

The novelty wore off as quickly as the chickens grew up. Cleaning out their coop became a hated chore - it was a very smelly job.  I rarely fed them as the long summer days turned to fall and I returned to school.

And still no eggs – just fat chickens and I could tell  Nanny was getting tired of taking care of them.

  

One Saturday Nanny declared, “We are having a roast chicken for Sunday dinner – Calvin go pick one for us!”  I was mortified and couldn’t do it, so she went to the coop with a hatchet in hand as I hid in my room.  I heard the loud hysterical cackling of the hens as Nanny selected her victim – this was a terrible sound.  I had to stop this murder and I raced out the door just in time…TO HEAR THE WACK OF THE HACKET!

And then I saw the most horrible scene I had ever seen in my young life.  It was Henny running across the back yard at full speed – running around like a chicken with its head cut off.  This old saying that Nanny used many time was true.  

I felt like I was going to faint.

I tried not to think of this scene but it was very hard to erase the horror from my mind.  For the first time after eating chicken for years I now knew how they became our dinner – plus to make matters worse - Nanny had chosen my favorite.

Sunday dinner arrived and we all sat down to the table after Sunday school.  The once mouthwatering aroma of roasted chicken now hung like a shroud in the air as Nanny brought my Henny to the table.

Mom, Pop, Nanny and Me just sat there and looked it.  

No one move to carve her for what seemed like hours, then Pop broke the silence.  “Come on, we are going out to eat now!”  And we all left quickly for the Peter Pan Diner.

On Monday evening Pop took all my chickens to a “farmer friend” – with my quick goodbye and blessing.

And I couldn’t eat a piece of chicken for months.