The Rooster

Mom couldn't have been more than fourteen the time she beat that rooster with a broom.

They lived in the house at the lower end of the hill. An old worn house, square with a front screened porch and a back door fitted with narrow steps leading into the yard beyond. It was built in the early 1930's, probably for a farmer's hired hand and his family. The whitewash was peeling in many places, and the forest green trim needed to be scraped and sanded and reapplied around the eaves where the water dripped during a rain. The house was built on concrete blocks, much like many other homes in that era, so the air could cool the underside of the house when the summer sun beat down from above. There was no air conditioning, and it was well after they moved out that window units were installed.

The rooster was an old codger, big and red and brown and spurred. He had been around for a number of years, getting meaner with each passing summer. He kept the hens happy and seemed to do okay with most of the adults, but he didn't take too kindly to Mom for some reason.

I remember her telling me on several occasions - those times we'd sit around of an evening telling stories of childhoods in Atlanta when Atlanta was nothing more than a mixture of two lane highways and a Rich's department store with a soda fountain counter - she'd tell us the story of the rooster, how she would always try to go out the front door, not the back, because that rooster still had long spurs, and if the day was hot and the sun was beating down, that rooster would get meaner and attack a pair of legs coming down those steps at the back door.

One day, though, she forgot about the old guy, and went out the back door, down the stairs, and ....*bam!* Mom said it was like getting hit in the legs by a small feathered beast. That rooster had come out from underneath the house and attacked her about the lower legs and calves before she could run or get away or find anything to defend herself. It wasn't the first time, but this was a pretty vicious attack. Apparently the sun had commenced to rotting that rooster's brain, because surely no yard bird with any sense would attack the child of the person who fed it each day.

Mom was always kind of dry with her humor. She'd get you before you knew what happened, and it was always funny to be the last one laughing. She who laughs last...well, you know.

So this time, Mom found a broom, and she started beating that rooster. She told us she swung that broom at the rooster and beat him and beat him and beat him until he was nearly as flat as the dirt she'd beat him in to. Then she beat him some more, to make sure he never spurred her again.

Later, as she was cleaning her face up in the bathroom after a crying jag from all the nasty spurrings she'd gotten, she looked out the bathroom window.

What did she see but the rooster, getting up off the ground. He was peeling himself out of the dirt, one feather at a time, wobbling around in the yard like he'd tipped up the whiskey bottle one time too many. She was pretty sure he would've been dead, but he wasn't.

He never spurred her again, though.

My aunt keeps working, even though she is well past retirement age and draws her monthly social security check. She is my father's twin sister, they being two of six children, all the others girls. Daddy used to tell people that he had five sisters, and they all had a brother.

Life was good for Mom and Dad. They'd raised three kids, saw those three children have children of their own, and watched these growing families venture out into the world to make their own way. Dad was near retirement when their fortieth anniversary came to pass on December 24, 1999. The plan was to go back to Germany. My cousin's husband had given them two buddy passes, as Delta employees are allowed to share, and they were flying over the following summer after Dad retired in the spring.

February came around, and the retirement party took place. Dad had already retired from the military, having served honorably for twenty-three years in the Air Force. We were all so glad that we could see him retire from another job of eighteen plus years where he started at the bottom and worked his way up to upper management. His contributions to this company were well respected and carried on even to this day.

Daddy retired on February 1st. On Valentine's day, he watched the NASCAR races - he was a big fan - then decided he'd go for a walk. His heart gave out on him two blocks up the road, where two young boys in their pre-teens found him lying face down in the road, non-responsive.

One of the boys, a recent CPR class graduate, tried to roll Daddy over in order to perform the CPR he'd learned in boys scouts. But Daddy was too heavy for him; too solid, too everything. He was already gone, as evidenced by the lack of bracing a person does when they fall forward. It was the skinning of his nose and forehead that lead the doctor to believe he never knew what hit him, thus he never braced himself for the fall.

Daddy would've been 62 had he lived ten more days. His heart failed him on Valentine's Day, of all days.

So my aunt, Daddy's twin sister, keeps working. I think she might believe that if she stops, she too, will face the same fate that her brother did.