Saving Grace

It would have been '58 or '59, the early December day my father brought home his latest bargain. The back seat of the two-tone Buick contained fifty pounds of grain and twenty pounds of extremely tweaked live turkey. His theory was to use the one to feed the other up to a dignified corpulence appropriate to the guest of honor at Christmas dinner. Tom Turkey occupied a box in one corner of the cellar, while Ginger nursed her pups in the opposite corner next to the coal furnace, and we kids took turns trooping up and down the rickety stairs to keep everybody fed and watered. On Christmas Eve morning Dad took Tom away and came back with something large, plucked and headless for Mom to stuff. But I've always suspected that, in the end, he made a secret run to the A & P, after releasing Tom into some hedgerow out of town, where his descendants dodge traffic to this day. A bargain at twice the price.