Catching Chickens: Reflections of a Poultry Herder

By Lawrence P Wilson

This collection of humor, satire and memoir has it all. Sex, religion, politics. What life was like and what it might have been had things been different. It's about growing up, growing older, and just plain growing. Seventy tales of phobias, winning the lottery, and something about Jesus. There's a fishing story, a getting knocked out story and

• Language: English
• Publisher: 36404
• Release date: Apr 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9781087964096

Lawrence P Wilson

Born in the 50s and a first-born to boot, this author grew up with all the trappings, good and bad, of those times. Lawrence or Larry to most (depending on where he was living at the time) went on to make a living wherever the jobs were, finally settling down to the life of a firefighter/paramedic/investigator. Before that he worked as a; grave digger, insurance salesman, shipping clerk, truck driver, airplane refueler, farmer, and among others, chicken catcher. He now lives in Titletown, Wisconsin with his wife, Sue, and "writes some."

Book preview

Part One

69 Springs

69 springs have come and gone,

each,

with its own meaning and message.

Young springs were heralded by the crack of a bat,

midnight trout fishing, capturing night crawlers and memories.

The warm sun shone through oak-framed classroom windows.

Flies buzzed, pranks were pulled while

counting down the days to summers

of picking pickles, county fairs and fireworks.

Then an autumn of assassination,

war, and unrest.

Still, another

spring came with anticipation and wonder.

Proms and first loves,

cars and outdoor movies, mosquitoes and popcorn.

Another year with Walter Cronkite,

counting boots and bodies.

Freedom and dread at the age of eighteen, yet

spring arrived.

Followed by the summer of love, followed by,

a soldier by the numbers.

#106, missed

the next spring,

and then another.

Riots, protest marches.

Kent State.

Daisies of spring

stuck in rifle barrels.

Four young people saw their last, spring.

Another spring returned with Tiger Lilies,

the hunt for wild asparagus, fishing,

the crack of a bat.

Falling in love.

Children growing with their own springs, wondering,

about birds, flowers, friends, and hope.

Then their cars, proms, first loves,

sharing futures with each other, and others.

It’s spring once again,

ushered in with gratitude,

sharing, caring.

And always,

wonder.

1st Place Winner, 2020 Heart of The Valley Poetry Contest (Adult)

A Moving Experience

There’s only one thing positive that comes from the chore of moving one’s possessions, whether across town or the country.

A story.

After helping yet another of the adult children move into a new home, I decided to make a list of all the places we had lived.

This included the summer I stayed in a bunkhouse on a defunct horse farm, but not when I woke up on a picnic table somewhere north of Eagle River (with a Saint Bernard licking my face).

Two places in Wild Rose, WI. One each in Wabeno, Appleton and Stevens Point. An apartment above Tilly’s Bar in Wautoma and three locations in Green Bay. Milwaukee (4 or 5). Madison times two.

Morris, MN, San Diego, CA, Boulder, CO, Two moves in Hilo, HI. New York City (actually, New Jersey but New York sounds classier).

That last move by our daughter consisted of only a suitcase and a backpack. She came back with the same.

Then there were military moves. Those amounted to four, living out of a duffle bag. They all had the prefix, Fort. Campbell, Polk, Benning, Bragg.

The most recent move into this home was some thirty years ago.

Funny how a thirty-year mortgage can continue to grow.

While trying to downsize in preparation for the next (and hopefully last) move while I’m still vertical, we found boxes that never were opened when we moved into this house.

We have a Platinum U Haul account.

Experts will tell you that if you haven’t used it, seen it, or thought about it in a year, you don’t need it.

What if you just can’t find it?

Many years ago, I knew a guy who had a large family to help and frequently changed residences. He would pop a beer when the first box was packed, and by the time the last stuff was loaded, so was he.

When he sobered up, he was someplace new.

While cleaning and sorting, we discovered the following in the attic above the garage.

Gunny sacks.

My Dad was always on the lookout for gunny sacks. That’s burlap bags to the layperson. He would slam on the brakes to snatch one off the shoulder of the highway when we were traveling.

These came in handy for hauling pickles or potatoes raised on the farm or to store other gunny sacks.

We had lots of them in the attic.

I found about a hundred onion bags. You never know when you might need a hundred onion bags.

We sold pumpkins and fall decorations for several years (twenty years ago). Thus the onion bags.

Still had strawberry boxes stored away.

Many, and I mean many, picture frames, old broken chairs, and lots of other things in numbered pieces. Stored in the attic to be repaired when I got around to it.

I just never got around to it.

A box of leftover fireplace brick from twenty-five years ago, just in case one would break.

One did break, but I never replaced it.

Threw the rest away.

Same with extra flooring that no longer matches the floor.

Paint that no longer matched anything and dried out in the cans sometime in the last century.

A beautiful three-room tent, minus the poles, stakes, and rain fly.

An ice cream bucket full of range balls picked up during walks past the golf course when I quit smoking.

A broken vintage John Deere automatic lawn and garden sprinkler.

Boxes of books from various classes taken during the 70s.

Canceled checks circa 1990.

Window screens from windows that no longer exist.

There were also scraps of lumber, pieces of drywall and plywood, some cement patching material, assorted copper pipe, elbows, and unions. PVC pipe and a radio from one of the kid’s cars, twenty years ago.

The city only picks up what they call excess trash twice a year, but I am allowed to haul stuff directly to the disposal site, at 20 bucks a load.

Except for what the DPW refers to as construction, remodeling and demolition trash (drywall, junk wood, flooring…) or what they also describe as move out waste.

I guess they don’t want us to leave.

A Street in Time

It was at the end of the neighborhood, at the end of the street, beyond an overgrown arch of stone and dead ivy, almost beyond memories of those who had lived and loved there.

One and two bedroom tract homes in rows of stucco. One green, another white, then one with rose-colored siding and the last, might have been burnt orange or brown with a clay tiled roof.

At the end of that lane was the end of Turtle Bay. Waves lapping at the shore as they have done since waves began. Surrounded by a marsh of cattails and red-winged blackbirds, croaking frogs, and a myriad of other aquatic and terrestrial creatures.

If you craned your neck towards the west and listened carefully, you could hear the sounds of the interstate traffic rushing by at 70 MPH. If you wanted to.

Otherwise, it was a daily symphony. The lapping of the waves for rhythm with a chorus of birds in harmony, along with the breeze that cooled patrons as they rested on their porches in the evening.

This little piece of memory was somehow forgotten by the developers, the marsh fillers, and the city planners, and that was alright by me and the remaining shareholders who grew up on the lane.

Back in the day, water was drawn from the spring, which is still running. Baths were taken while swimming in the bay with a bar of soap during the summer months. Winter meant bathing in a plastic kiddie pool with water heated on the stove. The tub was kept stored under the stairs.

The bathroom was out back.

The couple that remained living just outside the lane on Cedar Street, in a lapboard two bedroom home with plumbing, were the last to have lived down there. They often strolled the lane, reminiscing.

There’s where I caught that big snapper, Marvin remembered. Scared to death that I might lose my toes. I dragged that thing home by a stick in his mouth, and my father cut off its head and hung the carcass to bleed out.

He chuckled, that damn head kept on snapping for about an hour before it quit.

Helen, his wife, loved the old lane and its memories but hated snakes.

"They would catch the morning sun on our back porch steps which faced the east. Nice and warm there, just as I headed for the outhouse. Garters mostly, the water moccasins didn’t come up this far from the marsh.

That was depression time. People would fish, hunt and trap the marsh to feed their families during hard times, and for fun during the good ones. A skiff was always tied to shore with oars at the ready. No one knew who owned it. It was just always there. It’s still there, or what’s left of it. A couple steel ribs and oar locks that haven’t yet rusted away.

During the good times, people of the lane would drive about an hour into the city to work in the factories, mills, and the yeast plant. When the wind was just right you would swear that someone was baking fresh bread.

There was the banana man out on Highway 15. 10 cents a pound. Dad would always stop on his way home. After the bar and his two beers.

Sometimes he forgot the bananas.

This was beer town. Borne of German immigrants who brought the trade with them and built a city, a culture. People drank on the assembly line, brought beer home. Taverns opened at 7am for those on the graveyard shift.

Ours was a two bedroom house if you count the one in the attic. There were stairs going up and that’s where the five kids would sit to eat. Eight steps up, five steps taken. Spilled milk often dribbled down the stairs.

In a Catholic household, which most on the lane were at the time, Friday meals consisted of macaroni and cheese or fish if we caught them, or turtle soup. Saturdays, leftover fish or chicken if there was a sale. Mother claimed that she preferred the back. Sundays were special. Ham and fresh hard rolls from the bakery on the hill. After church, of course.

As we left the lane, the memories of love amid hard times were safely packed in the moving boxes, like Grandma’s china, to be kept and taken out for those special moments.

A Work in Progress

While going through my mother’s estate, I found a rather large, (heck, a great big box) of old greeting cards. Christmas, birthdays, Valentines cards for each of five kids going back to first grade. That’s 60, ah, some years ago for me.

There are other boxes, I’m sure just as big and just as full.

While going through some Valentine cards from eighth grade, I also found report cards belonging to me and my much younger sister June. The other three siblings must have been savvy enough to lose or destroy theirs.

Our grades were somewhat the same. Some A’s, mostly B’s and a C or two. How could she possibly get a C in reading and still get A’s and B’s in her other subjects?

She got straight A’s in Conduct!

My grades, as I have stated, were about the same but when it came to the Conduct portion, that grading section had been eliminated altogether. Maybe once again, I was over the top.

Another area of assessment indicated room for improvement, i.e. Effort, Work Habits, Courtesy, Observes Safety Rules and Parental Conference Desired.

And then there was Other.

My teacher, Mr. Perkins had a comment below the checked boxes indicating my shortcomings in efforts and work habits.

He wrote, Lawrence is a very smart student and if he would only apply himself, I see no reason why he couldn’t excel in higher education.

Back to the Valentines.

This box contained no doubt, hundreds of cards which were exchanged during school when each student had his or her own decorated shoe box with which to receive well wishes from classmates.

Mine no doubt was decorated with Red Ball Jets or Keds, labels and maybe a couple of hearts scribbled with a colored pencil. A large slot cut into the top.

The cards read, I’ll Panda-Mime Till you say you’ll be mine. Signed, by no one. It was blank. Another read, We could have a Circus if you’d stop Clowning around. Again, no signature.

Two others, one with the cartoon character Goofy with a bag of popcorn, Corny, but be my Valentine, and another with a fishing raccoon, I’ve fallen for you hook, line, and sinker.

Waushara Argus. All blank.

Either I had a lot of secret admirers, or they just didn’t want any evidence left behind.

Anyway, both my sister and I have since become writers, and we all know who is the better of the two.

Yeah, technically, Miss goody two shoes is the professional. She gets paid for her work at the while I have this blog that I have to pay for, just to keep online.

I did some content posting to ‘Hubpages’ a while back and to date have accumulated revenues of $.01. Don’t think they’ll send the penny any time soon.

Over the years I had contributed to the Green Bay Press Gazette’s ‘Today’s Take’ column. One day I asked the editor if they would consider paying me.

He replied, well sometimes we might take a writer out for lunch.

I’m Still waiting. The guy has since retired. Or died.

Oh well, close enough for government work. Maybe I’ll finish this tomorrow, or the next day. Ho hum… Whatever…

Thanks, Mom, for the memories.

Beating the Odds

As a legion of Green Bay Packers fans will tell you, the game’s not over ‘till the clock reads 00, and the last brat is washed down with frozen beer.

The Monday morning quarterbacks come out of the woodwork when the team seemingly fails to finish out a game they thought was already won.

The main criticism a few years ago seemed to center around the approach of "not playing to lose rather than playing to