The Chicken Story (Part III)

Grandpa and his watermelons, circa. 1915

The Chicken Part of the Chicken Story

When I asked my granddad to record The Chicken Story so I could post it here, I expected he’d be able to get me just a short anecdote, on paper. Better than that, my dad set him up with a digital recorder, and instead of just my favorite story about chickens, I got a wonderful narrative history of his twelfth birthday, his first paying job (50 cents a day), and a slice of life in the early quarter of the twentieth century.

In the process of transcribing the story, I discovered Grandpa recorded the story for me not just once, but twice, each version just a little different and told as fresh as though the events happened yesterday. These posts have attempted to blend the best of the two.

Today we get to the punch line, and the chickens. Or, rather, the chicken. Singular.

And for bonus fun, I’ve edited down the audio to this segment and posted it at the end.

If you haven’t had a chance to meet my 102-year-old grandpa, please read up on Parts I and II and then come on back for the ending.

Grandma and Grandpa celebrating birthdays, circa. 1960s

The Ice Man Cometh

a guest post by Al Willingham

I was only there those six weeks. On the last day I was going into work early. Mother and Dad had been up to what they referred to as dressing chickens. They had killed ten or twelve or fifteen good sized fryers and I was to take them in.

We often had a special sale on Saturdays. Different farmers would bring in chickens which were what they’d call already cleaned and dressed. In the corner of the butcher shop was this big old wooden barrel which stood about three and a half feet high and you’d put the ice in there and a little water to chop the ice up into small pieces and put these freshly dressed chickens into this barrel. And they were always the come-on, like the stores would have specials.

Back in those days refrigeration was something pretty much unknown. We did have a place in town where they froze ice in big 300 pound sizes. The ice man would bring the ice around to stores and homes and some people had what they called an ice box, a box where they could put a chunk of ice on one side and put their milk and cream and butter on the other side to keep it from melting away.

It was getting close to closing time. I was tidying up the butcher shop. My uncle that was running the butcher shop evidently had a big date that night and wanted to get away early so he left a little bit after 8. We didn’t have any customers and I was just cleaning up the place. I walked over to lock the outside door into the butcher shop when a lady came in a-huffin’ and a-puffin’ and said she wanted one of those chickens.

Well, I knew there was only one chicken in the barrel. So I go over and stir the ice up and I get this one chicken lifted up as my uncle would have done. I let the water run off it for a few seconds, give it one shake and put it on the scale. And I said, “Well that’s just a little bit under three and three-quarter pounds.”

She studied a few minutes and she said, “I wanted a bigger one.”

Grandpa and Lil, "North Carolina Gothic" circa. 2000-ish

Well there wasn’t any bigger ones in the barrel, there was only this one chicken. I knew that. So ol’ Smart Al he goes over to the barrel, puts that chicken back in there and stirs around a while and finally brings the chicken out again, there’s only this one chicken, and so I put it on the scale, and it’s just a little under three and three-quarters.

She studied a minute or two and then she says, “Oh, good. I’ll take ‘em both.”

Ohh.

What do I do next?

I was about to confess to her that we only had the one. But evidently my Uncle Val got through with his customer and was observing what I was doing. So he come in and he said, “No, no lady. That was a special. Only one to a customer this week at that price.”

So she said, “Okay.” He wrapped it up and she went on her way.

I finished up my doings, locked the door and went in the office to receive my pay. I got two quarters for working from 6:30 to 9:00 at night however I did get a good meal at noon.

He put his head back and pointed to his sign. The sign said Honesty is Our Policy.”

I had expected him to give me what-for for being so dumb. He never made any comments about what I had done or hadn’t done. He gave me my 50 cents and I went home. But I never forgot that, that honesty is the best policy in all cases.

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