ok, i've thought it over and i'll tell the story.
i was 19 yrs old about 2 weeks b4 my sons first thanksgiving. i was making about $3.90
an hour and we where very broke. had no money for the dinner, and was on my way home at 8am from a 16 hour shift.
it's about 25 deg. and as i head home in the middle of nowhere i see this turkey, he's keeping warm by sunning himself in the middle of the road. he hardly moves out of the way when i go by (the road was warm from the sun so he musta been cold), so i stop about 30' past him and look in my car for options. all i have is a spool of speaker wire so i make a lasso(figuring it's a longshot but i've got nothing to lose)
i'd like to interject at this point that while we had domestic turkeys around the farm while i grew up, i'd never been exposed to wild turkeys and they are a completely different animal.
so i pop open the trunk (to stuff him in there to take him home and fatten him up).
and armed with my improvised lasso i go after the turkey, i walk up real slow like, and he starts moving away when i get about 8-10' away, so i through the wire and i actually catch him around the neck and start reeling him in, feeling very proud of myself and quite clever, and saying to myself over and over 'I GOT HIM!!, I GOT HIM!!',
things where looking bright as i reached out and grabbed him by the neck, at this point, 'i got him' quickly turned into "HE'S GOT ME, HE'S GOT ME!!! "
for those of you who've never experianced a wild turkey up close and personal like, let me tell you they are NOTHING like their domestic counterparts.
domestic turkeys are slow,dumb, easily pushed around.
wild turkeys on the other hand, have big claws, a very sharp beak, have a real fighting spirit, and there wings push enough air that when they flap there wings up against the side of your head your ears pop as if you've been slapped on the ear hard.
so here i am holding this bird by the neck my ears ringing, trying to find away to let go as he shreds my long sleved shirt up past the biceps, taking deep furrows out of my arm (kinda like i was attacked with a carrot pealer)so i manage to get away from the bird and he trots off to a feild.
i make it to my car, arm shreded and bleeding heavy.
i hate losing and i can be vindictive (not proud of it, but there it is)
so i jump the ditch in my mustang and haul bellybutton around this feild until i run over, then back over the turkey, HA I WIN. not so tough now are you, ya dumb fluff'n bird
so iget the car back on the road and make it the 40 miles home. lost about 1 1/2 cups of blood on the drive home and the car was a mess, the whole right side of me from my shoulder to my knees was covered in blood, the shirt looked like it went through a 'incredible hulk' episode, and my ears where still ringging pretty loud.
i walk in the house and the wife asks what happend.
i just said "shut up and get the peroxide and bandages"
it was about 9 months before i told her what happened and probly 10 or 12 years b4 i told anybody else.
like i said " it's a long story and i don't come out too well in it"
[ 11-29-2001: Message edited by: capt. apathy ]
