The Great Oklahoma Turkey Chase

 I was almost six years old. I know this because it happened on my brother John's first birthday party at Grandma Gove's house out on South Bear Creek Drive. Baby Johnnie was a cute little roly-poly guy and we used to have a photo of him sitting on a blanket behind a clown face that was propped up beside him with a big open mouth to throw the ball through for a point. Everybody called John "Punkin" then. We had cake and peach pie if memory serves me.

When the party was over, Mom picked Baby Johnnie up and went in the house with the rest of the adults. Billie must have followed along, because I don't remember him in the rest of the story.

I stayed outside tossing the ball through the clown face by myself. I suddenly became aware of a black wall moving toward me from the hen house. Big black turkeys! They were gobbling loudly and didn't look friendly at all. I was near a tall fig tree on the east side of my Grandma's house and I lost no time climbing up the knobby tree until the turkeys couldn't reach me.

Those turkeys surrounded the tree and just stayed there, gobbling among themselves and looking evil end very menacing. After some number of minutes stuck up in the tree, I started yelling for help. Nobody heard me inside the house. After some more minutes, I began wailing and bawling, convinced that my fate was to be eaten by the turkeys.

After what seemed like a very long time, my Grandma came out of the house. She immediately saw the problem, picked up a stick from somewhere and chased the turkeys away. I climbed down and went inside and stayed in the house for the rest of the day, I think.

Here it is September 9, 2023, over 74 years later. Early this morning I was riding my bicycle south on Newberry Creek Road only a mile from my house. There is a steep rise in the road, maybe 10 feet or higher, but it is steep enough to slow me down and make me shift gears. As I came over the crest of the hill, from a driveway in front came a stream of black turkeys, heads down and attacking. They are very territorial and not at all shy like some people think. I started pedaling faster and got out in front at about 20 miles an hour. They chased me for at least fifty yards.

Since I started wearing these cycling shorts with bare legs exposed, I feel like I've got two drumsticks for legs when the dogs chase me down the road. If they are too big to outrun, I've found it best to stop and order them back to the house. Amazingly, they always do, because they just want to chase - they don't know what to do when the rabbit stops!

I'm not at all sure that will work with turkeys. I think they would just peck me to death if I stopped. Now that I know where they live, I'll have an extra burst of speed coming up that hill from now on.