Death-My first experience

Death-My First Experience




My first experience with death came with a bit of humor. Or at least that is the way I see now that I am older.

I had two old maid aunts, Aunt Bernice and Aunt Sallie, who were my grand parents sorta speak. They raised farm animals. Chickens, goats, maybe a cow or two, hogs for sure. Before I started school Abe and I were to stay with Aunt Sallie. She was one of my two aunts that lived with each other. Aunt Sallie had tried for years to raise a rare chicken with no success. For years had labored until finally she had three of these rare foul to hatch and nurse them beyond a couple days old. That is until I came along. Somewhere in my 4th year of painting the canvas that would become the work of art that would become....me, I took to roaming around their little farm by myself. One day I saw the chicken’s drinking water. Wow!! They would dip their beaks in the water and throw their little heads back to drink. Wow!! My little mind couldn’t believe it. I had to see them do it over and over and over again. So I opened up the cage and forced their little heads down into the water. Bless their hearts, they tried to keep up but I guess a 1 pound chicken is no match for a little 4 year old boy. As soon as one would stop moving I would grab another and down it would go for the baptism.

When the last of these little things that were put on the earth for my amazement quit moving I realized I was in deep chicken do-do. What to do, what to do? My little mind had to think quickly. I looked around came up with a sure fire way to escape the scene of the crime and not get caught.

Later, my Aunt Sallie, remember her, she wasn’t all there, great lady and I love her dearly but she was a few chicken McNuggets short of a happy meal, she went to feed the animals and check on her prize chickens and oh she was so proud. She opened the door to the chicken coop and there they were and it took her a few seconds for her mind to comprehend what her eyes were telling her she was seeing.

I had taken sticks and propped the chickens up so that upon first glance they appeared to be standing up. Only I couldn’t get their little heads not to flop over. And their little wings kind of swooped up in the air like angel wings. Their little feet appeared to be levitating, barely a quarter-inch from the floor of the chicken coop. actually quite an engineering feat for a 4 year old.

Now in my mind years later I thought I had never had a beating like the one she gave me. My Aunt Sally, who I revered as my grandmother, raise a hand to me? No way. Yeah way. I am sure it was no worse than a couple of pops on the leg but it sure hurt my feelings.
I cried more because I had upset her than for the sacrificial birds I had just put to death. And the image of those birds I had sacrificed still burn in my mind today.

The next brush with death came the same year I think. While at my aunts house I had caught the biggest toad frog I believe had ever existed. And we became fast friends. We played for hours and oh we had such a great time. If they were to make a movie about us his name would have been Benjamin Buford Blue. (That was Bubba’s real name in Forest Gump.) And as I was leaving that day and to make sure my new best friend and I would be able to play the next time I was there, I placed a big rock on top of him.

That was on Friday. On Monday I got to go back and play with my new bestest friend in the whole wide world. So I went out in the back yard, picked up the rock where I had placed my new best friend and what went through my mind? Chickens. Dead chickens. Beatings. From Aunt Sally.

So what did I do, did I take sticks and prop-up my little friend? Did I cry because I had lost the only thing in this world that brought me pleasure? Hell no, I placed the rock back on him and found something else to terrorize. What did you expect Mr. Journal, I was only 4.