It's November, also known as The Month That Made the Turkey Famous. (Were turkeys any more aware of time, it would be known as The Month That Makes the Turkeys Tremble with Fear.) Soon our plates will be filled with turkey, stuffing, cranberries, second helpings, and a few pieces of pumpkin pie for dessert. (Back in the days before my metabolism stopped, I might have had a few pies for desert; cutting them into pieces was just a waste of time.)
The following days will see us pile our plates with leftovers, for two and maybe three meals per day. By the time the turkey is nothing but a pile of bones, I'll be so tired of turkey, turkey sandwiches, turkey tetrazinni, turkey tortillas and anything else imaginable that I'll never want to eat turkey again. In fact, I'll never even want to see another turkey.
And why would anyone want to see one anyway? Turkeys aren't exactly the fashion models of the bird world. Squatty bodies, spindly legs, a long neck… and that thing that hangs from their face. If turkeys have a complex, it's because they have good reason.
Growing up at the lake, I saw turkeys all the time. They liked to hang out on the side of the road, watching cars. They rarely seemed afraid to be seen; I always figured it was a defense mechanism, along the lines of "Take a good look! Are you sure you want to put me in your mouth this Thanksgiving?"
I did have a turkey dash in front of my car once. It wasn't a suicidal dash, like those made by possums; I think this particular turkey just had urgent business on the other side of the road. He burst from the weeds and did his little turkey sprint, with his neck stretched as far as it would go, and his little legs churning.
The other side of the road was a rather steep incline, and apparently the turkey sprint didn't build up enough momentum. He made it about ten feet up the incline, then seemed to give up. So he turned, spread his wings, and began to glide back to where he had come from. Unfortunately, his glide path now included a car windshield that hadn't been there before. I hit the brakes, and got a close-up view of this particular turkey as it skimmed the hood of my car.
It was the first time I had ever seen turkey wings used for anything other than dinner. I knew they could fly, I just had never seen it. A couple of years later, I learned why.
It was a beautiful autumn day. The sky was that shade of blue that the summers-only people never see. My dog and I were walking through the woods, and the leaves that crackled under my feet were the only sounds to be heard.
We came to a small clearing, and looked down at the lake. It was deserted, though the day could not have been nicer. The blue sky, the even bluer water, the red and yellow leaves that clung to the trees defiantly, as if daring winter to spoil the mood… the faint trace of wood smoke from a far-off fireplace… the perfect stillness... when Jim Croce sang about saving time in a bottle, this was what he meant. (And that particular bottle would be worth a fortune now, since most of those trees are gone; but, they were keeping people from seeing the giant mansions that have been built there since, so they had to go. Priorities, you know.)
The perfect stillness lasted about ten seconds, until the dog found someone to play with-- a turkey. The dog bolted after the bird, but it avoided him by leaping straight up, into the limbs of a tree. The turkey perched there briefly, then hopped to another limb. He did this for a little while, with the dog following him the whole way, unwilling to look away.
It's possible that the turkey's plan was to get the dog to run headlong into a tree, but this dog was too smart for that. Eventually the turkey gave up, and flew off-- towards an island about 200 yards offshore.
I had never seen a turkey really fly before. It was far from graceful; the most impressive part of the whole display was the sound his wings made as they cut through the air. He tried to glide, but every time he stopped flapping, he began to wobble, and descend rapidly. And so, the wings would start to flap again.
About halfway to the island, the turkey was obviously laboring, and he was drifting noticeably off course. He had proven that he could fly; I started to hope that he could swim, too.
When he finally reached the island, he quit flying. Just stopped, and tumbled to the ground; I could actually hear him crash into the dry leaves. I had to look hard, but I did see him get up, and wobble into the woods as if nothing had happened.
Maybe that particular turkey was a bad pilot, or maybe he was a perfect example of why turkeys rarely fly. If it was the latter, I think turkeys are doing the right thing by staying grounded as much as possible. After all, they can't always count on there being a pile of dead leaves handy when it's time to land, and I shudder to think of the consequences of crash-landing on a pile of rocks instead. It wouldn't take long for turkeys to eradicate themselves, and we might be looking at a much worse Thanksgiving tradition; liver and onions maybe, or Spam. So long live the turkey!