Tag: turkey

Franklin versus Franklin

 

This information may be apocryphal but so what? Apocryphal stories can be fascinating. A biblical apocryphal story titled “The Wisdom of Solomon” has the author (the smartest man of all time!) caution men not to marry more than one wife, as the anger and conflicts caused by those backbiting women couldn’t be contained.

Ben Franklin and his illegitimate son William Franklin were close for a while, but when the Revolutionary War was brewing William was a “loyalist” to the British, while Ben supported the Revolution. That didn’t enhance their relationship.

William and Ben also disputed which language should be used by Americans; it was a tossup between German and English.  The Germans dominated the northern populace throughout the early days and they were the first of the hated immigrants.  Ben wanted people to speak only English while William leaned towards German. That didn’t enhance their relationship either.

But their big blowout came about because of a bird or, rather, two birds—the bald eagle and the wild turkey. There was a big debate flaring in the colonies as to which bird should be their emblem and later on, the emblem of United States.

William championed the bald eagle because he and his supporters thought the bird was regal and a true monarch of the air. Ben advocated the wild turkey because it was combative and didn’t take any guff from other birds or people. It also tasted a lot better than the bald eagle. Perhaps Ben liked the wild turkey because it was quite promiscuous, enjoying the intimate company of as many lady turkeys as it could.

To this day Americans love turkey, consuming over 750 million pounds of it, according to the University of Illinois Extension.

William’s predilection for the regality of the bald eagle probably came from his love of the British crown and royalty in general. Although not as promiscuous as his father, William did sire his own illegitimate son much like Ben and King Solomon.

Although a close look at the bald eagle will reveal that although it does nail fish and small varmints, it will also chow down on carrion. So it isn’t as regal as William at first thought. Still, unlike the turkey, the bald eagle does not make a habit of attacking people. It’s generally a loner, while the wild turkey prefers gang colors.

Father/son relationships can be fraught with difficulties, as many of you know; just look at Luke Skywalker and his dear old dad, Darth Vader. That relationship cost Luke an arm, although I actually prefer the leg (of a turkey that is).

Visit Frank’s web site at www.frankscoblete.com. His books are available at smile.amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, as e-books and at bookstores.

 

They Rule the Sky? Yuck, No!

I make no bones about it; I am a lover of the predators: the eagles, the hawks, the falcons. These soaring birds are rulers of the Earth’s heavens. Such magnificent creatures do not just fly, they soar, hunting, always hunting for the fearful creatures these fearsome birds will kill and devour.

Little songbirds, while pretty and often gaily colored, can fly, yes, but they cannot soar high into the sky, they cannot dominate their world. They live lives of terror; flitting from here to there, to mate and to not to get eaten. The energy they expend flying is overwhelming, consistently flap, flap, flapping

In Cape May, New Jersey, my wife, the Beautiful AP and two friends of ours, Martine and Tom, saw hawks of some kind flying over the trees. There had to be at least a dozen of them; one bird soaring after another.

“Oh, man, look at those,” I pointed.

Four pairs of binoculars pointed heavenward to catch these magnificent birds in flight. Ohhhh and they were dominating the sky, watching for prey. Then one flew into the parking lot of the Cape May Preserve, where we were about to get into the car to go to Sunset Beach. This creature hovered over our heads, maybe 10 feet above us.

“My God,” I exclaimed. “What a hawk!” I had no idea what kind of hawk this bird was but nevertheless it was a marvel.

“That’s not a hawk,” said a young woman about to get into her car.

“What is it then?” I asked. “A small eagle?”

“That? Those?” she pointed upward. I nodded. She laughed, “They are Turkey Vultures.”

What the hell? “Huh?” I questioned. “They are hunting though, right?”

“Nah, they don’t hunt. They eat the carrion they find on the roads and in the fields.” She looked closely at my face. “If you feel any better, they don’t eat anything that is putrefying.”

TurkeyVultures? Soaring Turkey Vultures? My world was being turned upside down.

The word turkey is not an appellation signifying supremacy. In the schoolyards of Brooklyn, the borough where I grew up, calling someone a turkey (“Hey, turkeeee!”) is a sign of disrespect.

And the word vulture? Unpleasant at best; totally disgusting at worst. They look it too. Vultures look like what vultures should look like; disgusting. Except these birds didn’t exactly look like vultures until you looked at their faces – those faces were not hunters’ faces; they were the faces of the avian zombie horde.

Before I knew I was watching a turkey vulture, I saw a majestic predator governing the sky.  Once I heard its name, I saw a derelict scavenger searching for an opportunistic meal. It’s the name that makes a difference. “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” said Shakespeare. As usual, Shakespeare got it right because he knew our species so very well.

[Read Frank’s Confessions of a Wayward Catholic! Available at Amazon.com, kindle, Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores.]