A Story by Grandpa Jim

The Turkey was reading. More precisely, he’d Googled “turkey” on his iPad.

“I’m a large bird native to the forests of Mexico and North America,” he read aloud. He liked to read and talk on his perch. “Most people don’t even know I ‘perch.’ All they ever see is my frozen cousins in the grocery. Poor birds.” He scanned down the page with his beak. “So that’s where the name came from. The early settlers thought I was a guinea fowl from the country of Turkey. I’m not. I’m a completely separate and independent species. The cheek.” He cleared his snood, uttered an incensed gobble and read on. “They’re right about that one,” he cackled. “We’re older than these pesky homo sapiens. Over 20 million years and counting. All the way back to the Early Miocene.”

He lifted and shivered. Winter was approaching. More precisely, Thanksgiving was approaching. He shook his wattle at the thought.

“Squanto was behind it all. He and those Wampanoag committed that first fowl act of inviting his roasted ancestors to Thanksgiving in 1621.” A native American, he reconsidered the criticism. “It was the Presidents,” he huffed. “THEY declared a formal November Holiday. From Washington, to Lincoln, to Roosevelt, those in Washington conspired to set the table for a feast on the fourth Thursday in November.” He could understand corn, potatoes and pumpkins – even eels (slimy things), but his friends? He lifted and strutted on the branch before roosting back with a sigh. It had been a struggle ever since.

He’d escaped years ago. More precisely, he was a free turkey – perhaps the last.

“’Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.’” He kee-kee’d the lyrics into the damp woods. “’Nothin’, don’t mean nothin’ hon if it ain’t free, no no.’” He missed Janis Joplin and loved to listen to her on YouTube. In another life, he would have liked to play guitar in her band. Just to be her friend, not Bobby, just her friend, and help when she needed help. “’Hey, feelin’ good was good enough for me, mm-hmm.’” He sank a little lower on the branch. “I would have been her friend,” he whispered to the rain.

There would be no “Return of the Ape” movie for him and his kind. More precisely, their days were numbered, as they were each year.

The rain fell lightly across his feathers

It had been long since he’d had a true friend

His beak touched the iPad off

The games were fun and the media too

But there was more to life

He bowed his neck on the soggy branch

And hummed

“’And, feelin’ good was easy, Lord, when we sang the blues’”

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXV_QjenbDw[/embedyt]