Otuo-Akyampong Boakye, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports no official progress on the keeper’s request to keep a small flock of chickens on the balcony of the 5th floor Vista West apartment, where he and Phyllis live; but the word about potential chicken dinners may be out with avian predators: neighbor John reported seeing an owl on the Vista West roof, and the keeper spotted a goshawk perched briefly on a parking lot light pole.
In his cluttered memory closet, the keeper retains an image of his skinny Norwegian grandfather running across the farmyard with a shotgun in hand and with the intention of shooting the “chicken hawk” soaring over the chicken yard.
Among his other chicken memories is one dating back to WWII when one of grandpa’s fearsome roosters “treed” the keeper’s terrified little sister Norma on the windmill ladder, thus earning itself the “Hitler” moniker, and speeding its destiny as the center piece of one of Grandma’s Sunday dinners.
Since he can remember gnawing on a drumstick the day that Hitler came to dinner, the keeper asks for reminiscence tolerance as he lingers back in “the good old days:” Chicken never tasted so good, and world politics was never so simple.
