Wild Turkey

In my fallow youth. I used to drink Wild Turkey Bourbon Whiskey. Right on the label there was an image of a grand tom turkey, not to mention the reflection in my glass. While I'd seen wild turkeys shown on the nature shows and hunting shows on the tube, I'd never seen one up close. Until a year ago. In a parking lot. At my cardiologists' offices!

There I was, parking the car in the usual mental fog that passes for my consciousness these days. As I struggled to get out, I happen to look through the door window and saw some movement. Brown feathers, mottled with white and black flecks. "Ah Ha!" I said to myself in my best nimrodian tones. "Must be a hen pheasant." Except, there were no long tail feathers. And then a ray of sunlight pierced the overhanging pines of the parking lot and there she stood, as though captured on stage in the spotlight. A hen turkey. Gorgeous. Alert and intelligent and wary of this human staring at her, but not panicky. Slowly the light faded as a cloud passed by and she turned, always keeping an eye on me as I stood transfixed, she pecking through the snow, looking for pine nuts and whatever else she could find to sustain her on that late autumn afternoon.

Well, "Tempus Fugits" and my wife fidgets and it was at the point when I was about to be late for my appointment, so off we go, up the hill guaranteeing repeat business to the heart guy's office. But it was very clearly a great day in our lives. Until yesterday.