When I was growing up on a farm in Iowa, the standard rule concerning edible livestock was that any critter that has a name is safe from becoming Sunday dinner.If only we'd named the dog, just once, he'd still be alive!My sister and I had a pet turkey named "Tom" (how original...hey, we were kids) that we raised from a 'chick' and he was imprinted with the image of us being his mom.
He followed us around constantly like a spare shadow and always came out to meet us, getting off the school bus each afternoon. He'd come out and fan out his feathers and strut around a bit. It was his main, possibly only, talent.
In early November, word leaked out to us that he was going to be the main course for Thanksgiving dinner. The old rule had been over-ridden and Tom was about to be "axed" literally.
Come the day before Thanksgiving, we all dreaded what was about to happen and nobody would volunteer to be his executioner. Just thinking about it spread through the family to where we were all nearly in tears.
Happy ending:
We couldn't bear to kill Tom for dinner, so we ate the dog.
I woke early one morning,
The earth lay cool and still
When suddenly a tiny bird
Perched on my window sill.
He sang a song so lovely
So carefree and so gay,
That slowly all my troubles
Began to slip away.
He sang of far off places
Of laughter and of fun,
It seemed his very trilling,
brought up the morning sun.
I stirred beneath the covers
Crept slowly out of bed,
Then gently shut the window
And crushed his f###ing head.
I’m not a morning person.
Arlo Guthrie
Me and my goose
Me and my pal
We had some very good times
Me and my goose, his name was Al
And he cost only a dime.
Over meadows we'd stray
Playing all day
I missed him at night until dawn
Then one day I found he wasn't around
I wondered where Al could have gone.
I looked everywhere; he just wasn't there
Where could a goose be all day?
I missed my pal
I missed my Al
It's sad that things turned out this way.
Then my mom brought him in!
I remember her grin
Stuffed with his feet pointed straight.
I'll never forget the night that we 'et
Al off of the old yellow plate.