THE OLD CODGER HAD AN EXPENSIVE MEAL

My daddy was the compulsive sort.  Whatever idea he had in mind needed to be acted upon and acted upon immediately.  When the spirit moved him, it was best to just get out of the way and let him because nothing would stop him. Most of these ideas had to do with the farm. 

This time it was peacocks.

 My daddy decided we needed peacocks to roam about the farm for their beauty. I visualized him fantasizing about being some European gentry on his estate with exotic fauna.  Mother just rolled her eyes and shook her head with that “I've been through this before” glazed look upon her face.  She reminded him that Peacocks are expensive play toys. Daddy's retort was they would be a thing of beauty as they strut around the farm and that we needed to have something else for the school children, who visited the animals on our farm, to enjoy.

After researching zoos and many telephone calls, across several states, he managed to purchase two males and their matching peahens. We kept them in cages in the barn, for a few weeks, to get them used to the area before giving them free rein to roam the farm. When released the males paraded about the place showing off like fifteen-year-old boys in front of a gaggle of giggling girls. 

peahen

            The peahen, on the other hand, is a drab sort of creature lacking the finery of her distinguished mate. These drab ladies followed the males about the barnyard with admiring glances, obviously adoring every move made by these cocky show-offs. The conceited males loved the audience and spent endless hours turning and preening and spreading their fan shaped tails for their women to admire.

Daddy found joy in hearing their caterwaul from barn roof tops or around the grounds. Mama hated the sound especially when the caterwaul was in the middle of the night on the roof above our heads

Visiting school children adored the addition of peacocks to the goats, ponies, geese, deer, and lamas that the “old gray mule (my daddy) provided for their visits. We began having more school trips of adoring children having free reign of the farm while the tired teachers attempted to control the enthusiasm. Daddy loved the visits, which was easy for him to say since he usually went somewhere else leaving me in charge of crowd control. This went well until one weaselly little boy left the gates open. Hearing some noise, I looked up to see the peacocks parading down the middle of the busy highway. Right behind them, like a pair of dutiful squaws, walked their little mousy mates. I struck out at a gallop while the teachers practiced crowd control on the squealing children. 

I learned that Peacocks, for all their beauty, are lacking in brains, and are impossible to herd. They went everywhere except the right way. Finally, a kindly truck driver helped me retrieve the fowls running amuck.

Life went well for a while until one bright moonlit night. We suddenly realized something was missing. There were no screams of “help, help”, like some PBS murder mystery. It was too quiet. They were gone. Where were the peacocks and their homely women?

 Early the next morning, I was sent searching for these wanderers. The peacocks were found desolate, sitting in the tall grasses of a ditch dragging their beautiful feathers, like playboys with a hangover. They were alone. The mousy peahens were missing. I found no traces of them. Subdued and repentant, the peacocks were silent all the way home and spent the rest of the day sitting under a tree bemoaning for their missing mates. There was silence all day, until the moon came out. Suddenly the peacocks sounded like a couple of drunks, sobering up, and set off the most desolate cries of their entire lives for their girls. They screamed night after night for weeks. Still, we couldn't find the peahens. 

Mother was outdone with the whole situation and furious that the money daddy had spent on those noisy birds and their mousy mates was lost.  

Weeks later, mother heard, quite by accident, that an old codger down the road, who shoots anything with wings, except buzzards, to eat, had bragged how he just happened to find sitting on his back tree two of the nicest wild turkey hens he had ever seen. “I fattened them up on that corn I got from Mr. Blair, and they sure was tasty,” he said. This old codger had mistaken the peahens for wild turkeys. He sure had an expensive meal that year.

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