Published: July 01, 2008 08:48 am         

Time for talking turkey

No telling what conversation topics will arise when The Gathered Sages assemble for coffee at the Fly Creek General Store. I guess I shouldn’t say “assemble,” since participants wander in, fill cups, sit or stand awhile to trade views and quips, then head out the door, almost always after paying.

It’s a kind of moveable feast, and I love it. Sometimes, if the crowd of loiterers gets too large or loud, Tom Bouton will skulk out of his office to disperse us. “I’m not running this place out of philanthropy!” he mutters, deliberately making himself a target. Then everyone tries to best Tom in insults. Nobody succeeds. Nobody minds.

The other day we Sages were talking turkey, real and figurative. I’ll tell you about the literal birds in a minute. First I want to describe the metaphorical ones I found roosting in Cooperstown on the day of the parade and the rained-out game.

My plan had been to leave Fly Creek early, take the trolley into the village, and join fellow Mohican Club members watching the parade from our porch. When I got there, however, only a few Mohicans and wives were seated onto the porch. Any view of the parade was blocked for them by an unbroken row of people who’d settled in on our wide stone balustrade. I scanned the line as I walked up. A few were Mohican relatives, more than welcome. But most were strangers festooned with cameras and fanny packs, and slugging bottled water.

As I climbed onto the porch, Barbara Lambert, who’d somehow managed to get a place on the balustrade, tipped her head down the line and raised her eyebrows. I shook my head in agreement and then said hello to her husband Paul and Hank Phillips, who obviously shared my feelings. “Maybe we ought to charge them,” said Hank.

I dragged a chair out of the clubhouse and sat down, steadily more irate. The flash point came when I heard one stranger tell another that they were sitting in front of a private club. “Oh?” said the other. “I thought it was just a private home.” As if that would have justified the intrusion! As you know, old guys get a little odd. Petty presumption outrages them, and they get themselves heated up to where embarrassing themselves matters less than striking a blow for civility. I stewed for awhile and then thought, “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!” Taking off my straw hat, I stepped down onto the sidewalk, holding the hat upside down. Paul and Hank, grinning like fools, crowded forward to watch. With, I hope, a warm smile and in my best pulpit voice, I declaimed to the rail-sitters.

“Friends,” I intoned, “we’re glad you’re with us to enjoy the parade, but you’re sitting on the Mohican Club balustrade. This is a private club whose members are mostly old men, even some as old as that one.” I pointed to Paul, standing behind them. He squelched his grin and tried to look feeble and vacant-eyed.

“These are hard times,” I continued, “and we oldsters struggle to pay the club’s expenses. So, in return for presuming on our hospitality, I know you’ll want to contribute toward keeping this treasured place going.” Then I thrust out the hat.

Well, I’ll be switched! By the time I got to the other end of the balustrade, the hat was full of ones and fives. Only one guy in his 20s had looked at me stony-faced, and his buddy was so embarrassed, he put in extra money. That sortie wasn’t a financial bonanza; but, boy, did I feel better for striking a blow for civility.

Now, about the literal turkeys. I raised the topic to the Sages when one asked how our animals were doing, and I told them that Anne and I had four turkey poults caged under a heat lamp in the barn.

They’re Narragansetts, a heritage breed, and look a good deal like our area’s wild turkeys.

That’s because they may be America’s oldest breed, a melding of turkeys hauled across the ocean and bred with wild birds.

In maturity, Narragansett toms are dignified and big, moving with the majesty of a parade float. They’re mostly black and gray, with a complementary tan on their tails. The hens are more slightly built and resemble even more the wild birds you see in cornfields around here. As near as I can tell, we have a tom and three hens out there in the barn, eating up a storm, and stinking up the place to high heaven.

I’d forgotten how bad caged turkeys can smell. A few years back I helped out the Cider Mill by starting out their poults here. It was a good deal; in November, the Michaeles gave us a couple of them back, at full weight and ready for processing. But over the years, I’d suppressed memory of the breath-taking stench upstairs in the barn. I remember now.

But relief is coming. Next week we move the fledged birds down to the pig shed behind the barn. After they’ve settled there, we’ll open the door and cross our fingers.

The theory is that these free-range birds, used to getting food and water in the shed, will return there to roost at night. We’ll see. Toward the end of the turkey talking, Lee Winnie laid out a story that was a showstopper. He’d been out walking his dog just at dusk and was startled by a black mass he saw on a tree limb, 20 feet overhead.

He squinted and saw it was a big hen turkey, roosting with both wings spread wide. Under each wing, clinging to the branch, was a halfdozen yellow chicks. Mama was protecting and warming them with her spread wings. That story stopped the Sages dead as they tried to figure how those chicks got on the high branch. The hen couldn’t have hatched eggs up there, and none of them had ever heard of a bird that could pick up chicks and fly them somewhere for safety. They sat silent, pondering. You see why the name “Sages” is apt. Sometimes the old boys range right into the metaphysical.

Find out about Jim Atwell’s book, “From Fly Creek — Celebrating Life in Leatherstocking Country’ at www.JimAtwell.com.