Funny Turkey Story

[norgeway]

This REALLY did happen...Picture it...Lenoir NC, mid 60s!,.,,My Dad won a live turkey at a shooting match , I think it was about September or October, anyhow, he brought it home and told my Grandmother She could fix it for Thanksgiving, That suited her fine because having raised a family during the Depression She was always trying to be saving, She put the live turkey in our old chicken coop, which was still there ,several years after they quit keeping chickens, and fed it corn until Thanksgiving....Thanksgiving morning it had really gotten to be a big turkey, My Mother said it must have weighed 25 or 30 pounds, So My Aunt Jean "Mothers Sister", came to help, They led it to the chopping block where years before Grandmother always killed chickens, She had hunted up her old hatchet and proceded to try to chop its head off...I say try because it was so big and tough that all she managed to do was nick it a little bit....and it jumped up and ran off.....Grandmother in pursuit swinging the hatchet and yelling to my Mom and Aunt to HELP GIRLS....Its going to get AWAY!!..Well they couldn't help because they were too busy rolling on the ground laughing!!..Finally they caught it and the next time Grandmother finally succeeded in chopping its head off, My mother said it was nothing like cleaning a chicken!! The feathers were much harder to pluck ETC...Grandmother cooked it all day and my Mother and Aunt said it was just like rubber, it never got tender, Grandmother told Daddy, Don't you EVER bring a live turkey here again!!!

 

[toploader55]

Too Funny.

 

I could picture that happening. Not today so much. We have rafters upon rafters of Wild Turkeys here on the Cape. I shoot them with a BB gun just to get them off the property.

The only thing I like about them is that they eat Ticks. Which are heavy here on the Cape. And that's the only thing I like.  They are nasty and stupid as well. And they Crap all over the place. Their "business" is the size of a small dog. Gross.

 

[iheartmaytag]

This didn't happen in our family

. . .but it could have.

I had  customer when I ran a Video store years ago that like many families were dysfunctional to say the least.

 

This family was PWT as they come, but Aunt Laurabell had a charm about her "Honey".  Every thing she said to you was punctuated with "Honey"  

 

Well this one Thanksgiving, had to be 88, or 89.  Laurabell was cooking the dinner.  While she was cooking the family proceeded to get more and more drunk.  By the time dinner was to be served, in which she had had no help from the rest of the family.  She called them to dinner and the ones that weren't already passed out, were slugging it out.  

 

"What did you do?"  we asked Laurabell as she was relating the story the day after.

"I opened the back door, picked up the turkey and chucked the who mess to the dogs, Honey."

 

Wellst about that time one of the more sober of the group realized what happened, and yelled to the others still conscious; there they were fighting off these pit bulls trying to salvage their turkey dinner.

 

"Don't feel sorry for me, Honey."  Laurabell told us "I made me a plate before I chucked it out."

 

Once she was telling us about her Nephew in law who was "Homeysexual"  That's another Laurabell story, I'll save that one for Christmas.  That's when the nephew killed his wife. 

 

[iheartmaytag]

Sorry I killed the thread.  I though they were funny stories. 

 

I have another one that did happen in our family, but I afeared now. 

 

[ken]

Dont be afeared

I want to hear it.

 

[moreluvr]

gobble

norgeway-great story! iheartmaytag! I think your story was funny too-now from one Kansan to another PLEASE tell that story!

 

[iheartmaytag]

I'll tell it after others have shared

Don't want to hog Norgeway's thread.

 

[moreluvr]

pwt

Now I know what pwt means-googled it!

 

[iheartmaytag]

OK, Here is the other Turkey story

Christmas day 1987, the phone rang about 7:30A.M.  It was my oldest nephew.

 

"Uncle Harley, Terry's dad died last night, and Mom wants to know if you can help us get the turkey started while she is over at their house?"

 

Terry was their step-dad, my sister's husband.  That's another funny (now) Christmas story.

 

"Well Johnny, I have to go back to the store and finish last night's processing.  Then I have to go over to your grandpa's apartment and deliver his gifts, then fill up with gas and since it snowed last night it's going to be about three hours before I can get out there."  They lived 25 miles out of town.

 

"That will be too late, Mom wants to have dinner around 1:00."

 

"Ok then let me talk you through it."  "First start the oven, then get out the roasting pan, unwrap the turkey."  "Now you are going to have to reach in and--"

 

"EWW gross, I'm not sticking my hand up a turkey's ass."

 

"Johnny, put Shannon on the phone."  "Shannon, you need just reach in and--"

 

"Gross, No way."

 

"Go get Michael."  I figured Michale the youngest would do it, after all he didn't mind eating all the tropical fish out of the fish tank."

 

"Michael, I need you to reach in and pull out the--, Michael, Michael??"

 

"It's me again Uncle Harley."

 

"Ok, Johnny, I will be out there as quick as I can."

 

So I hurry and get the stuff in town finished and get to Viola.  I walk in and there the boys are watching TV. 

 

"OK, where's the turkey at."

 

"OH, we put it in the oven so it could get started."

 

"Did you removed the giblets and neck?"

 

"NO, but we wanted it to be done on time."

 

So I pull a now hot turkey out of the oven and pull the steaming giblet bag and neck out of the turkey, and dinner actually got served on time.

 

Here years later we always bring up that story at a turkey dinner.  Johnny is no longer with us, he died of brain cancer in 1997.  But Shannon, the middle one, is now a Vetrinarian.  We have a great time teasing him that once he wouldn't take a dead turkey's guts out, and now he slices open dogs and cats and sews them back together.

 

 

[firedome]

Plucking turkeys...

ya gotta scald the carcass in boiling hot water for a spell first, then they come out fairly easily.

 

[vacbear58]

Hans

Sounds like your grandmother needed a professional on the job

TINA!!!!!!!

 

[ken]

Joan was just pretending

She was a real professional.

 

[norgeway]

Re Scalding//

Oh She did that too,She knew how to clean a chicken, but that ancient turkey was much tougherLOL