I grew up on West Walnut Street in Rogers, just about where Backyard Barbecue is now. My five sisters were, fortunately, all younger than I. Friends still remark on seeing the six of us sitting up in the wild cherry tree along Highway 71 watching the traffic go by.
Some of the vehicles were Tyson trucks, hauling chickens to market. There always seemed to be a few escapees riding on top of the wooden crates, and I used to wonder what happened to them. I was to learn the fate of one particular hen that fell from the truck in our front ditch and was adopted by my sister, who named her Henryetta.
When I turned 14 my parents decided that I was old enough to care for my sisters without parental supervision. The weekend they had to go to St. Louis was to be my first test.
My mother is so organized she alphabetizes her spices. Although we all knew how to cook from our weekly night on kitchen duty, she prepared all the meals for the weekend, wrapped and labeled them, and put them in chronological order in the freezer. All we had to do was thaw, heat, and serve, and spend the rest of the time trying to stay out of trouble.
Home alone, we soon tired of our made-up games and looked around for adventure. For some unknown reason we decided that we would have Henryetta for Saturday night supper. The six of us agreed that we were all in it together, and would share responsibility.
We knew from cartoons that the proper way to dispatch the bird was to lay its neck across a stump and cut off the head with a sharp ax. So we did it, or rather, I did. The cartoons didn’t show that the headless chicken would run around the yard, spewing blood and running into everything it its path, including us. She did.
We looked up chicken butchering in an old encyclopedia, which gave us the information on scalding, plucking, and gutting. It took what seemed like hours of heating water, dunking the chicken (we no longer referred to her by her proper name), and pulling thousands of feathers. Finally she looked something like the birds at Foodtown, mostly naked and cut into proper serving pieces.
So, we fried her up in a big skillet, served her with mashed potatoes and green beans, said grace, and dug in. Suddenly no one was hungry any more, even for the mashed potatoes.
Sunday evening our parents returned and questioned us about the weekend. Mother looked in the freezer and saw that the container of beef stew was still there. She asked, “What did you have for Saturday night supper?” We proudly exclaimed in unison, “Henryetta.” To this day I still don’t think she believes us, except that at family get-togethers I am accused of making my sisters eat their pets.
Some of the vehicles were Tyson trucks, hauling chickens to market. There always seemed to be a few escapees riding on top of the wooden crates, and I used to wonder what happened to them. I was to learn the fate of one particular hen that fell from the truck in our front ditch and was adopted by my sister, who named her Henryetta.
When I turned 14 my parents decided that I was old enough to care for my sisters without parental supervision. The weekend they had to go to St. Louis was to be my first test.
My mother is so organized she alphabetizes her spices. Although we all knew how to cook from our weekly night on kitchen duty, she prepared all the meals for the weekend, wrapped and labeled them, and put them in chronological order in the freezer. All we had to do was thaw, heat, and serve, and spend the rest of the time trying to stay out of trouble.
Home alone, we soon tired of our made-up games and looked around for adventure. For some unknown reason we decided that we would have Henryetta for Saturday night supper. The six of us agreed that we were all in it together, and would share responsibility.
We knew from cartoons that the proper way to dispatch the bird was to lay its neck across a stump and cut off the head with a sharp ax. So we did it, or rather, I did. The cartoons didn’t show that the headless chicken would run around the yard, spewing blood and running into everything it its path, including us. She did.
We looked up chicken butchering in an old encyclopedia, which gave us the information on scalding, plucking, and gutting. It took what seemed like hours of heating water, dunking the chicken (we no longer referred to her by her proper name), and pulling thousands of feathers. Finally she looked something like the birds at Foodtown, mostly naked and cut into proper serving pieces.
So, we fried her up in a big skillet, served her with mashed potatoes and green beans, said grace, and dug in. Suddenly no one was hungry any more, even for the mashed potatoes.
Sunday evening our parents returned and questioned us about the weekend. Mother looked in the freezer and saw that the container of beef stew was still there. She asked, “What did you have for Saturday night supper?” We proudly exclaimed in unison, “Henryetta.” To this day I still don’t think she believes us, except that at family get-togethers I am accused of making my sisters eat their pets.
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