Word of the day: Peripatetic  (per’ i pə tet’ ik)  “Walking or moving about; not staying in one place; itinerant.”

I love the word peripatetic! It sums up so much of my life. I was born in Philadelphia from a long line of ancestors born in Philadelphia and Bucks County, Pennsylvania. In fact, my ancestors were in what is now Philadelphia long before the late-comer William Penn ever showed up. To this day almost all of my relatives still live in this region. My parents were the black sheep of both families because they were the first to ever move away. After the War ended, my Dad was still in the Army, and we briefly relocated to Ft. Hood, Texas. Outside of some old photographs, I have no memories whatsoever of this brief interlude.

After the Army, my Dad went into sales and we moved a great deal.  We lived in Denver, Colorado; Memphis, Tennessee; and Glen Head, Long Island, New York before the move to Texas that I told you about a couple of blogs ago. My little sister, Suzanne, was born in New York, which technically made her more of a Yankee than me, or so I thought.  As an adult, my husband and I have carried on the itinerant family tradition. We have lived in Fort Worth, Texas; Louisville, Kentucky; Greeley, Colorado; Bangor, Maine; Buffalo, New York; and back to Colorado. This doesn’t even count our moves within each state.  My Mother used to say she needed one address book just for us to keep writing in our new addresses.

Life in sales was not always so good, and my Dad rotated among various companies, selling carpet, well parts, and even Stetson hats. During some of the lean times, there was often not enough money to pay the rent on the drafty old farmhouse on Willow Brook Road. Our landlady was a delightful woman, who was also named Bess, the same as my horse.  She actually lived down the street from us and raised game birds for local restaurants. I used to love to spend long afternoons at her house and help feed all the beautiful fowl.  During one of the dry spells for my Dad, Bess, the landlady, not the horse, kept us supplied with an endless stash of frozen pheasant. I am not sure I appreciated her generosity at the time though.

We had fried pheasant, grilled pheasant, baked pheasant, pheasant fricassee, pheasant salad, pheasant and dumplings, and the ever-famous pheasant noodle soup.  My usual question of “What’s for dinner, Mom?” was met with the usual answer, “Pheasant.” I thought I was going to start growing pin feathers!  My Mother was a wonderful woman, but she never quite made the ranks of Gourmet or Bon Appetit.  A few of her other more famous dishes were Doggie Stew (No, not real dogs–a boiled up concoction of sliced hot dogs and diced boiled potatoes, which turned a ghastly orangey color from all the coloring in the hotdogs), Spanish Dish (A casserole of hamburger, macaroni, and tomato sauce), and the all time family favorite of the ’50’s, baked Spam and beans.

Despite what were no doubt tough times, my parents always managed to keep my sister and me protected from how bad things actually were. It wasn’t until I looked back at my childhood with the far more realistic eyes of adulthood, that I really appreciated my parents’ selfless love and Bess’ incredible generosity. However, I don’t think I have ever ordered pheasant on any restaurant menu to this day no matter how elegant the entrée, and no hot dog or Spam has crossed my lips in many a year!

Somewhere around this time my Mother also started raising chickens to sell the eggs.  My parents bought the fertilized eggs and hatched them in chicken incubators.  I loved seeing the fluffy little yellow chicks emerging.  They rapidly grew into pullets, a fancy word for young chickens.  The pullets quickly grew into mature laying hens, and the poor roosters probably joined their distant relatives, the  pheasants, in the deep freezer.  We had quite a flock of White Leghorns; at least I think that was the breed.  At any rate they were white and laid eggs.  They had free roaming around the fenced in horse pasture and busily worked their way around the pasture eating who-knows-what.  I preferred not to think too much on that, given the ample quantity of horse droppings all over.

One of my daily chores was gathering the eggs from the long rows of boxes in the chicken coop.  I didn’t really mind too much; there is something satisfying about gathering warm, fresh eggs.  You must put them very carefully into the bucket so as not to crack the shells.  Then we washed them and put them into egg cartons, and my Mother delivered them to her growing list of customers.  Gathering eggs was one of the those somewhat mindless tasks that allowed plenty of time for daydreaming while you were doing it.  That is, daydreaming until the day I reached into the hen box and came back not with a nice, fresh egg but with a chicken snake! From then on I always took a cautious peek into the box before reaching for the egg.

Now you may recall,  I had my horse, my red cowboy boots, my tooled leather belt, and my cap guns, but I didn’t have any cattle to herd.   So, what’s a cowgirl to do?  Herd chickens of course!  It wasn’t quite like a real cattle drive, but a couple hundred white chickens squawking, flapping their wings, and running around the pasture with a black horse and Dale Evans in full pursuit was a pretty satisfying experience.  Unfortunately, the stupid chickens stopped laying eggs when they got really upset, and my chicken herding career soon came to an abrupt halt.

©2015, Black Dirt and Sunflowers

I warned you I might get a little woo-woo from time to time, so check in next Friday for “Lily Dale:  A Village of Psychics and Mediums.”