July 13, 2004
another shot of wild turkey
7/13/04
As I was driving a car packed with stinky trash bound for the town dump, I turned up a country highway and BLAM! From out of nowhere, this giant bird swoops out of a cornfield, hits the grille of the car, and explodes in a million feathers. Through the rear view mirror of the car, I can see the body of the bird hit the pavement and bounce once, that ugly bounce that tells you something is really dead.
As with all roadkill, I felt utterly horrified. I've only killed three other animals in all my years of driving: a possum in '94, a rabbit in '93 and, worst of all, a Schnauzer on a freeway in a pounding rainstorm in '83, during my first month of driving. All of them left me feeling positively sick with guilt.
But this time there was a car right behind me, and I couldn't stop to see if I could help the bird. Instead, I went to the dump and spent half an hour unloading all of the recycled liquor bottles my ne'er-do-well friends leave at the farm.
Cars came and went, and I knew I had to get back on the street and face what I'd done. The road was empty now, and sure enough, there was a brown lump ahead right where my left tire had been. When I got closer, however, it wasn't what I expected.
It wasn't a normal bird – it was an adolescent wild turkey, and it was standing straight up in the middle of the road, looking straight at me. I pulled over, got out of the car, and slowly walked up to the bird. He was missing a bunch of feathers and his neck looked scraped up, but other than that, he was perfectly fine – except that he was FUCKING PISSED OFF AT ME.
I crouched down about three feet from the turkey and said, "I did this to you. It was me. I am really, really sorry."
He cocked his head so that one eye looked directly into mine. And I swear to god it was like he said "I forgive you." Then he casually walked to the other side of the road and disappeared back into the cornfield.
This turkey had sat in the middle of the road for a half an hour, not caring that cars were going right by him, WAITING FOR ME TO MAKE AN APOLOGY. You have to admit that takes serious balls, my friends.
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Nice turkey story. Glad to hear you were going to the dump to drop your trash. Some say that the downfall of our society began when municipal trash pick-up came into vogue.
This is kind of amazing. On our way home from your house yesterday, we saw this giant brown lump on the side of the road and when we got close it stood up tall and shook its feathers and showed itself to be a GIANT wild turkey. I'd never seen one before. George, who apparently has seen many, said that this one looked dazed and comfused. I'm not sure what to make of it. Is there a wild turkey infestation in your area? I also have to admit my most hideous driving experience was also in 1983, also in my first month of driving, when I hit and killed a German Shepard in the highway. Are we connected in some karmically strange injured animal world?
Mmmmm... Bottles... Wild Turkey....
Don't let that Turkey fool you. Had it not been dizzy from the impact, it would have eaten your face for supper. I once had to jump a fence to escape a pet Turkey. It would have followed me over the fence if it wasn't injured already. Its chest feathers were all gone, so I asked the farmer what happened. It was in a fight with a German Shephard. The Turkey attacked the German Shephard unprovoked and won the fight. When you encounter a wild Turkey simply follow your everyday scary movie rules. Don't get out of the car. Don't go off alone. Do not carry on a conversation with your back to an open window and what ever you do, don't be anywhere near a bare breasted camper in the dark.
Wait a minute! Laurie, was your German Shephard in Wisconsin? I don't think you had an accident. That German Shephard was thrown into the path of your car by the same Wild Turkey that chased me over a fence. Wow! It's a small world. Small and dangerous with all these fucking homicidal Turkeys wandering about.
All this sounds like an overdose of that other Wild Turkey.
As for the horror of running over living things, I think Ian may have been scarred by my backing out over a kitten when he was about eight.
shudder.
That was Michelle's kitten.
Ah, God. After all these years that still makes me laugh.
Yeah, hardy-har-har. That kitten's name was Katy. Even funnier was when you and Ian decided to open the trash bag where Katy was to show me where Dad tossed her post-mortem.
Hardy har forking har.
Several years ago my wife hit and killed a beaver - behind it was 2 baby beavers, leaving them orphans.
Happened to be on a stretch next to land owned by a friend, when I told him the story, he was thrilled - he big rodents were damming up the creek and causing damage.
My wife is upset about it to this day "who hits a beaver?" she asks. Normally the sympathetic type and a fan of wildlife, I still find the whole thing really, really funny.
Do birds count? If so, my roadkill death toll is three, if not, only one. That one was heart-breaking though. Last summer, Carla and I were literally on the last mile of a 375 mile trek to our summer home in Mercer, Wisconsin when I flattened a rabbit. He just darted out of nowhere before I could even react. Even ABS didn't help. This was on the only road to town so the next trip in, with a carload of neices and nephews aboard, my brother-in-law Todd couldn't resist pointing out the carcass and saying in a cheery voice, "Look kids, there's the bunny rabbit Uncle Kenny killed!".