Each year as Thanksgiving approaches, I think briefly about
a time long ago on the farm where I grew up.
Part of our meager income came from raising turkeys. No—we did not sell them live. At a rather young age, I was required to
assist my father and others in butchering turkeys in the period nearing
Thanksgiving. It was not a pleasant
job, but many jobs on the farm weren’t either.
It was necessary with no possibility of opting out. The unpleasantness
of seeing creatures being put to death was somewhat assuaged by nature of
turkeys—not very loveable. Yes, I know
that Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national bird because he
considered it more noble than the eagle.
But we—my siblings and I-- found domestic turkeys to be stupid and
hapless. Our butchering operation was
as humane as we could have made it. I’m
sure if today’s animal rights people could have observed us, they would not
have found anything abusive. We didn’t
abuse animals—they were too valuable to us.
Then it was Thanksgiving Day—a religious time, a time of
being thankful and a spiritual time; perhaps the only national holiday that
isn’t commercialized. The gathering of
our stoical Scandinavian family, not given to expressing much sentiment, was
nevertheless spiritual in our closeness to each other. The turkey at the center of our dinner table
was more than a tasty treat, it was symbolic of that hard work that we
all--young and old—had done to make this feast possible. I’ve often wondered if there had been no
turkey would there have been a Thanksgiving dinner. Probably not.
Recently, news of a major turkey producing company abusing
its birds disturbed me. Why does this
happen? Does being such a large
operation take away the affinity for all life that we had on a much smaller
scale on our farm? Assuring ethical
treatment of the turkeys could not have made a noticeable difference in this
company’s bottom line. Let’s hope that
those wrong doings will be corrected.
Happy Thanksgiving.
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