posted on October 25, 2001 12:51:54 AM new
During the Middle Ages, the cock was an important Christian symbol of
resurrection and vigilance. A rooster represented God, goodness, and lightness.
Cocks' places were earned at the top of buildings, domes, and church steeples.
They crowed at the birth and death of Christ, and they herald the dawn, "which
brings light to the sins of the night and rouses men to the worship of God."
Witches Sabbats were dispersed, and enchantments were dissolved, by the crow
of a rooster. The rites of Satan ended because the Holy Office of the Church had
begun. the 4th-century Christian Latin poet Prudentius sang, "They say that the
night-wandering demons, who rejoice in dunnest shades, at the crowing of the
cock tremble and scatter in sore affright." In the time of Saint Benedict, Lauds
and Matins were recited at dawn and became known as Gallicinium, or
Cock-crow.
According to Nicholas Remy, a 16th-century witch prosecutor and demonologist,
cocks were despised by all sorcerers and witches. However, roosters did not
keep witches away. Cocks were a frequent sacrifice victim by witches because
killing one was tantamount to spitting in the eye of God.
I used to have a chicken that loved to go crazy-carpetting. I was sliding with my
sister one day when I realized a rooster was standing off in the snow, staring at
us. I thought it would be funny if I put him on my crazy carpet. I put him on, gave
a push, and he went sailing down the hill. This was all well and good, except for
the fact that there was a rail fence at the bottom of the hill. My sister and I were
both smart enough to bail before hitting the fence, but chickens have never been
known for their intellects. He got off the crazy carpet the tough way:
near-decapitation. But he was a good sport, and he walked back up the hill. I
recommenced sliding with my sister, all under the beady-eyed stare of the
sports-rooster. Finally, I stood up and stared back. He came over and stood
back on the crazy carpet. I couldn't believe it! He actually wanted to go sliding!
For the next few weeks, the rooster went sliding with us every day after school.
Since poultry #*!@ without discretion, I gave him his very own crazy carpet.
Although he was unable to pull the crazy carpet back up the hill, he became adept
enough to actually "push off" and start the crazy carpet sliding all by himself. He
looked, for all the world, like a little skateboarder in a chicken suit when he
would kick off with a foot.
The story, however, doesn't end happily. One day, I came home from school and
saw him frozen to death at the top of the hill. I guess he had decided to take his
chances crazy-carpetting alone. Without me there, he had frozen to death waiting
for his crazy carpet to come back up the hill.
posted on October 25, 2001 04:04:48 AM new
He really was a chicken running
around with his head cut off.
The e-mail message seemed innocent enough. A reader
simply asked "Ever heard of the story posted here at this
link?" and offered a hyperlink to another web page. I
clicked and came across a story that I was sure had to
be pure fiction. The only problem is that the story
appears to be totally true.
This is the story about Mike the chicken. Mike, of
course, was not your ordinary chicken. No, not ordinary
at all. You see, Mike was a headless chicken. If you
want to be really specific, Mike was actually a headless
Wyandotte rooster.
I should point out that Mike wasn't always a headless
bird. In fact, he was born 100% normal, complete with a
head (most normal chickens have one of these) in Fruita,
Colorado.
On September 10, 1945, Mike's short five-and-a-half
month life was about to take a turn for the worse. On
this day, Mike received a death sentence. His owners,
Lloyd and Clara Olsen, decided that it was time to
slaughter a group of birds, some to sell and to prepare
others for themselves. Out to the hen house they
went…
Watch out Mike!
As you can probably imagine, Mr. Olsen was the one
whacking the heads off while Clara plucked and cleaned
the birds.
Bash! Down came the ax and off went Mike's head.
Mike's head was surely dead. Mike's body was not.
Now I know what you are thinking - it is well known that
chickens will run around frantically when their heads are
chopped off. That's probably where that old expression
comes from. And, everyone knows that a headless
chicken just can't survive more than a few moments.
Apparently, Mike forgot to read the rulebook for playing
the game of Life. His head may have been lying on the
floor, but he had no problem standing up and strutting
around as if nothing had actually happened. The next
day, Mike was still flopping around, so Lloyd decided to
feed him to see how long he could keep the bird alive.
Day after day he continued to gain weight.
Mike could easily balance himself on the highest perches
without falling. His crowing consisted of a gurgling sound
made in his throat. Mike even attempted to preen his
feathers with his nonexistent head (apparently he never
noticed). It seems that Mike could do just about anything
that any other chicken could do, if you exclude all of the
functions of his head.
As I'm sure you can imagine, headless chickens are not
an everyday event. In the tradition of that famous
huckster Barnum, there was money to be made in this
oddity. A promoter by the name of Hope Wade came
along and convinced Lloyd that Mike would be a big
draw in the sideshow circuit. Miracle Mike, as he soon
came to be known, toured up and down the West Coast
of the United States. Just six weeks after his beheading,
Mike was featured in a Life magazine article and his
fame grew. For just 25 cents, anyone could pay to get a
look at Mike. At the height of his popularity, Mike was
raking in a cool $4,500 per month, which was no small
potatoes in those days. They probably would have
thrown in his head as a bonus - it was stored in a canning
jar and toured along with Mike. (Actually, a cat ate
Mike’s head. Some other poor chicken’s head was
pickled in the jar.)
And, if there was money to be made, there were also
copycats. Other people in Mike's hometown began to
chop the heads off of their own chickens in an attempt to
get in on the scheme. One copycat headless rooster was
named Lucky and he managed to live for eleven days
before bashing himself into a stovepipe and dying (Lucky
wasn't that lucky after all). Several other headless
chickens lived for a couple of days.
So how was Mike able to survive? Scientists examined
him and determined that Mr. Olsen had not done a very
good job at chopping Mike's head off. Most of the head
was actually removed, but one ear remained intact. The
slice actually missed the jugular vein and a clot prevented
him from bleeding to death. Apparently, most of a
chicken's reflex actions are located in the brain stem,
which was also largely untouched. Mike was also
examined by the officers of several humane societies and
was declared to have been free from suffering.
Through his open esophagus, Mike was fed a mixture of
ground up grain and water with your typical eyedropper.
Little bits of gravel were dropped down his throat to help
his gizzard grind up the food.
One serious problem that Mike commonly experienced
was that he would start to choke on his own mucus. The
Olsens came up with the simple solution of using a
syringe to suck the mucus out. But, one day tragedy
struck. Mike was traveling back home to Fruita and was
roosting with the Olsens in their Phoenix motel room.
They heard Mike choking in the middle of the night and
quickly realized that they had left the syringe at the
sideshow the day before. Miracle Mike was no more.
The exact date of Mike’s belated departure from this
world was never recorded. Years later, it was
estimated, based on Lloyd’s information, that Miracle
Mike died in March of 1947. Eighteen months living
without a head could be considered a world’s record.
Yet, Lloyd didn’t want to admit that he had accidentally
killed the bird, so he claimed that he had sold the bird
off. This little white lie is the reason that many of the
stories printed about Mike claimed that he was still
touring the country as late as 1949.
But wait, the story is not over! Mike actually has his own
holiday! On May 17, 1999, Mike's hometown of Fruita
held the first "Mike the Headless Chicken Day" in honor
of one of its most famous citizens. Some of the events
included the 5K Run Like a Headless Chicken Race, egg
tosses, Pin the Head on the Chicken, the Chicken
Cluck-Off, and the classic Chicken Dance. The food
offerings included - you guessed it - chicken, chicken
salad, and the like. Let's not forget the great game of
Chicken Bingo in which the numbers were chosen by
where chicken droppings fell on a numbered grid.
If you are interested, Mike the Headless Chicken Day is
an annual event. As peculiar as it is to describe, it
actually sounds like a great time. And it’s all done in
celebration of the life of one lucky bird named Miracle
Mike.
posted on October 25, 2001 11:26:13 AM new
Cluck cluck what a bunch of "Old Hens" all this goodbye stuff is for the birds!! Sorry, gotta go cross the road, to get to the other side...goodbye!
This just in from Henny Penny, "The sky is falling!"....g'bye
[ edited by Zilvy on Oct 25, 2001 11:27 AM ]
posted on October 25, 2001 01:07:55 PM new
Good night, Ma.
Good night, Pa.
Good night, John-boy.
Good night, Mary Ellen.
Good night, Grampa.
If you people don't shut up, I'm gonna pillow y'all while you sleep...
