Posted on 11/19/2001 5:03:51 AM PST by WillaJohns
It's kind of comforting to know that even in these troubled times, some of our public officials are still capable of making us laugh.
Consider, for example, their crackdown on Glenn McElroy and his turkeys.
Maybe you saw this on the news. Glenn, 64, runs the Pick Your Part auto-salvage yards in Anaheim and various other California locations. As a promotional gimmick, Glenn bought 320 live, raised-for-the-table turkeys and announced plans to hand them out to customers.
The idea was that customers could chase the turkeys around the salvage yards, and if they caught one--not a particularly difficult task, given that these are big, fat, overfed domestic turkeys--they could take it home for dinner.
Glenn thought the so-called Great American Turkey Hunt was a cute advertising idea. But animal-control officials in Orange and Los Angeles counties disagreed. At the urging of animal-rights activists, officials served Glenn with a cease-and-desist order, saying the turkey stunt would constitute an illegal "tormenting" of the turkeys.
"The turkeys could hurt themselves," L.A. animal-services spokeswoman Jackie David told the news media. "It's very stressful for the turkeys."
Now, let's pause for a moment and consider the logic here. This Thanksgiving, Americans will consume with gusto an estimated 50 million turkeys that have been beheaded, gutted, plucked, stuffed and roasted. Meanwhile, public officials are worried that turkeys running around an auto-salvage yard might "hurt themselves"?
And as for the stress, Glenn insists is just isn't so.
"I looked every one of those turkeys in the eye today, and not one of them said he was feeling stressed," Glenn told me last week.
Nevertheless, Glenn's Great American Turkey Hunt is off. But, strangely, Glenn couldn't be happier about it.
True, he's out the $5,000 that he paid for the live turkeys. He's out thousands more for the frozen turkeys he's buying to make good on his turkey offer. Also, until he unloads the turkeys--some will go to charity, some to a turkey sanctuary--he still has to feed the darned birds. And according to Glenn, "Those turkeys eat like pigs."
So what's Glenn so happy about? Simple. The publicity!
Since the story broke, Glenn and his turkeys have appeared on news programs as far away as New York and Australia. And he's been deluged with calls of support for his fight against the save-the-turkeys crowd.
"I couldn't have bought this kind of publicity," Glenn says. "I haven't had this much fun in 10 years."
So, among the many things we have to be thankful for, let's also be thankful for public officials who, in the week before Thanksgiving, feel compelled to protect turkeys from emotional stress and "hurting themselves."
Because the world would be a much less funny place without them.
And Glenn McElroy might have had to spend more money on advertising.
Disclaimer: Hand typed. All errors are by the typist.
Until the PETA/CLU's scream "ENTRAPMENT!"
Do you think I can hit abuse on myself and have my thread disappeared? No one seems to have much to say, anyway. I thought it was worthy of comment, and cute, too!
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