Eight Feet Deep

I have been experimenting with some photo tools and I just couldn’t help myself. Sorry for the two turkeys in a row. Or is that three?

Next year I will get my own reality TV show.

Whether you eat turkey for Thanksgiving or not, you just got to love turkeys. They are the creatures with looks perhaps only another turkey could appreciate. Their look is one of perpetually being lost. It’s a look that says: “What did I do with my car keys?” That is provided, of course, they had car keys or some way in which to use them. I cast about the ‘net (pun?)for some fun facts about the noble turkey since some of you out there (I’m talking about the 25 or so of you)will have a dead turkey stuffed with something squishy on your table tomorrow. And awayyyyyyyy we go:

1. The heaviest turkey ever raised was 86 pounds, about the size of a large dog.

The heaviest song I ever heard was “The Battle of Evermore” on Led Zepplin’s fourth album (the one with Zoso and the circles). Some say the song was based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings’ final volume, The Return of the King. I’m not so sure. “The apples turn to brown and black/The tyrant’s face is red.” Maybe I’m missing something but it sounds like they’re talking about an LSD trip here that was ruined when the father of one of them found out they were tripping and started lecturing them on the evils of illegal substances. But maybe not.

2. Wild turkeys can run 20 miles per hour.

Deep fried turkeys hardly ever run.

3. Turkeys’ heads change colors when they become excited.

Mianne Bagger, who had a sex-change surgery in 1995, created a lot of excitement when she became the first transsexual to play in a women’s professional golf tournament in last year’s Australian Open.

4. Six hundred seventy-five million pounds of turkey are eaten each Thanksgiving in the United States.

That includes turkey feet, which I am told tastes like chicken.

5. Turkeys lived almost ten million years ago.

Which might explain those really, really dry pieces that you sometimes get during your Thanksgiving dinner.

6. Male turkeys gobble. Hens do not. They make a clicking noise.

I don’t think any truth to the rumor exists that originally they wanted to name the movie about the Kalahari bushman: “The Turkey Hens Must Be Crazy.”

7. Turkeys can see in color.

Unfortunately, the color is chartreuse.

8. Turkeys have heart attacks. The United States Air Force was doing test runs and breaking the sound barrier. Nearby turkeys dropped dead with heart attacks.

Wow. I didn’t know that. I wonder how you would give CPR to a turkey?

9. In England, 200 years ago, turkeys were walked to market in herds. They wore booties to protect their feet. Turkeys were also walked to market in the United States.

Thus the origin of “Shake your bootie.” Turkeys were also herded out West by turkeyboys who rode Shetland ponies. And you can’t forget the famous turkeyboys’ song later recorded with slight differences by Leann Rimes: “The turkeys are prowlin’/The coyotes are howlin’/Way out where the doggies roam/Where the Shetlands are bringing/The turkeyboy who’s singin’/His lonesome turkey call. (Gobble, gobble, gobble yodel).

10. Turkey breeding has caused turkey breasts to grow so large that the turkeys fall over.

One such large-breasted turkey actually wed an 80-year-old Texas millionaire.

Happy Thanksgiving and thanks to the University of Illinois Extension Service for the interesting turkey facts.

She didn’t know! My goodness gracious. Sweet little Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio, said she didn’t know that when she called her fellow U.S. House member Democrat John Murtha a coward that Murtha had served 37 years as a Marine. And that he was a decorated Marine to boot.

But that is what Schmidt told the Cincinnati Enquirer. She didn’t know. In a statement Schmidt, not surprisingly, makes herself out to be the victim of her own vicious attack.

“Since that moment I have been attacked from across the country by the left,” said Schmidt, whose war experience has largely been limited to attacking those who prefer choice in the abortion debate … “I am thankful for the thousands of supportive messages I have received from the people I represent and others across the nation since Friday. But this story has been way too focused on me, my conviction and word selection. Instead this story should be focused on the extremely poor policy the minority now propose. A policy, I might point out, that through this media storm has now been repudiated by dozens of leading members of the minority.”

I suppose you could say it was “repudiated” by Democrats when you they were faced with a “Have you stopped beating your wife” vote. Even the most rank, and I use that term in several different ways, amateur congress person will have a professional staff. Someone on the Schmidt staff if not Schmidt herself would have known just by reading the newspaper or watching TV that Murtha was a decorated Marine.

But then, the means justifies the ends these days for so many involved in politics, especially on the far right. Their propagandists can call decorated war heroes like Murtha and Max Clelland and John Kerry, cowards and traitors all while having never been closer to a military uniform than passing an ROTC student in college.

It goes back to what I’ve been railing against for some time and that is this crap about attacking those who served their country but don’t agree that getting into the Iraq war was a good move. It kind of cheapens my service to the nation. It’s like they are saying they are the biggest supporters of the troops, but they will only support those veterans who support George Bush and his policies in Iraq. That is just so wrong.

Early this morning was undoubtedly one of those still and chilly times when sound is carried to almost frightening distances.

I woke up about 3:30 and heard this roar that sounded like traffic on the interstate but it seemed very loud. I got up and listened closely and figured that it might be one of the many medivac helicopters that frequents Christus St. Elizabeth Hospital, only a couple of blocks from where I live. But I finally determined it was the interstate traffic.

Now I live close to Interstate 10 but not as close as I lived to Interstate 35 when I lived near Waco, so I am attuned to the kind of noise such highways generate. I-10 is probably six or so blocks west of here, but St. Elizabeth’s various buildings normally block out most of the noise. The interstate is also about seven blocks to the north of me. I usually cannot hear traffic on that part of the highway unless I am outside and it has to be pretty quiet like in the early morning.

The traffic noise was really bothering me and I couldn’t sleep. So I got up and turned on my computer. For the next hour I was entangled in computer hell and seriously wondered at one point if maybe this was all a bad dream. I couldn’t get any of my programs to load and when I would click on them, all I bould get would be a properties box. I did a little tinkering here and there and rebooted a couple of times. Finally, I got the programs up and running, but when I went to type something the Run command box would pop up.

So I went back to bed and when I awoke, guess what? It wasn’t a dream. The I-10 traffic was still pretty loud for after daybreak. And my computer woes continue. I dragged out the laptop to see if I could find on the Web about what the hell is eating Mr. Desktop this week. What a nightmare!

This year’s MUST HAVE Christmas gift. Buy a lovable snuggly Dick Cheney Bear. Squeeze old Dick Cheney Bear on those cold winter nights. Your kids will fall in love with the Dick Cheney Bear. You can tell your deepest, darkest secrets to Dick Cheney Bear and he will tell no one, well, hopefully he will tell no one. Maybe you should avoid telling him secrets. But with the Dick Cheney Bear you will just want to squeeze and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze …

Christians in Action (CIA) figures with torture chamber sold separately.