Turkey Trot

By Jim Henry

 This is a pretty wild story.   But I do have some photographs to prove this.  Often I have to get my training runs in at night after school.  Mornings would have to be way too early and running right after school would interfere with supper and doing the “Dad thing”.  Often my runs start at 9:30 pm or later.  Thus was the case one Thursday night around 3 weeks ago.  I started off for a 6 – miler.  I traveled down Geauga Lake Rd., down Snake Hill, out-and-around, and back.  It is pretty peaceful, low traffic, and so I often take my dog, Kota.  She runs 3 times as much as me as she checks out other dogs, chases deer, shadows, and any thing else.  Well, with about ½ mile to go, Kota jumps over a ditch and heads into a grove of pine trees.  I was paying no attention and kept running.  Moments later I hear a BANG as a full grown turkey flushes out of the pines and flies across the road, flying into a pickup truck that was traveling the other way.  The turkey lays in a heap and by now the truck has stopped and an elderly man walks out to check on the turkey and any damage to his truck.  Satisfied with the state of his truck we now discuss the future of the turkey carcass. “Looks like you got yourself a turkey,” I say to the gentleman.   “What in the hell am I going to do with that?” he responds.

   “That is wild turkey!”  I now am looking at him incredulously as he seems like an old country boy who should be wiley in the ways of the back woods and living off the land and would welcome this opportunity.  So I continue . . .

 

            “You take that home, clean it out, and throw it in the freezer, and you got yourself a nice meal.”

            “It sounds like you know what the hell to do.  The turkey is yours.”  He then gets back into his truck and leaves. 

  I look at Kota.  She guiltily looks back at me.  She is supposed to be part retriever, but she has no interest at all in this turkey right now.  So, I grab the turkey by the legs and throw it over my back and proceed to finish my training run.  I did have some cars go by slowly and I purposely did not look at the drivers’ faces as they went by.

            The end of this story has me surprising my family at 10:45 pm as I pull this turkey into the kitchen and hold it up by its legs.  Grace bursts out laughing and runs to awaken all the kids.  She then calls a late-studying Erin at Case who between fits of laughter keeps saying, “Who else does this happen to?”  I then spend the next 45 minutes in the yard cleaning out this turkey.

There are two pictures included:  me in the kitchen and a picture of me running with the turkey.  The second picture is kind of a re-enactment.  It definitely lost something in the re-enactment.  But, enjoy!  You never know what new adventures await.  Happy New Year's Everyone.

Jim

12-30-06