The Mean Rooster

   Our roosters were notorious for being mean. The one I remember most was so tough we couldn't eat him, the dog wouldn't and even the hogs turned up their noses. But since you can't have hens without a rooster, no eggs, we always had one and they inevitably were mean for some reason. This one was exceptionally mean and the only one he wouldn't mess with was mom. She'd be walking up to the out house and that rooster would start sneaking up behind her and mom, without turning her head, would say," Don't even think about it!" and that old rooster would just slink away.

   Now this took place before I was born so I have only the five minutes of story and 25 minutes of laughter interspersed in it to go on and depending on who told the story, how it came about.

   Seems when my oldest brother Jack, and next oldest brother John, were about twelve and ten years old, they decided to do that old rooster in with their slingshots.  Jack, being the brains of the operation told John that he would shoot first and if he missed, John was to shoot, thinking the rooster would go for the last one to shoot at him. Well, needless to say, things don't always go as planned and after Jack had shot and missed, John doing no better, that rooster flew right at Jack's face. Now Jack at this age was already six foot tall and when the rooster came up, he reached out and grabbed him by the leg and started whirling him around and around over the top of his head, afraid to let go and scared to hang on. Dad, working underneath the car in the yard, saw it all and was laughing so hard he couldn't move. At the sound of Jack hollering and carrying on, mom came running out of the house with a dog wood switch in hand, to see what had got hold of Jack. When she saw what was going on, she told Jack to let go and the rooster would be too dizzy to do anything, which Jack did. Now that rooster had heard mom's voice and when Jack let go of him, he took off as fast as a dizzy rooster could go, staggering and falling, with mom right on his tail,swinging that switch and chasing him, both swaying from side to side, one trying to get away and the other trying to catch up, missing each time she swung, raising a cloud of dust, hollering"Are you ever gonna do that again?!!", just like it was one of us kids.