Month: December 2019

Guest Contributor – War Pig – The Chicken Story

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In addition to his other occupations, War Pig is a gifted story teller and that is an honorable profession.  —  photog

 

Since people seem to like my stories of life pre-1980, here is one from my callow youth.

Another tale from my youth.

When I was quite young, in the middle nineteen-fifties, I went out to watch my paternal grandmother catch, kill and clean a chicken for supper. It was my first time watching. I helped her catch a fat, old hen (her chickens were all free range, plus they got feed). She took it up and with her dangerously sharp butcher knife, she beheaded it in one fell swoop. That didn’t bother me. What got me is that the headless chicken was set down to run and pump out the blood. Chickens can run for an amazingly long time without a head.

Well, the chicken, by chance, came straight at me, spraying blood. That was too much for my young mind and I took off screaming bloody murder while the chicken followed me. I ran to the fence and climbed up the post and perched there, crying, while the headless chicken finished its act of terror by flopping on the ground, spurting blood. Mamaw was laughing so hard she could hardly bend over to pick up the chicken, tie the legs together and hang it on a hook on the side of the shed to finish bleeding out.

She eventually coaxed me off the post and to come and watch the rest of the operation. It didn’t help that the chicken’s head was still apparently alive, it’s beak moving as if to curse the both of us. I stood behind mamaw, putting her between me and the soulless fowl. She heated up a wash pan of water to boiling over a small gas burner, then took down the chicken’s body and drenched it in the scalding water. With a gloved hand she removed most of the feathers then used a small paring knife to pull the “blood quills”. She opened the chicken, keeping the heart, liver, gizzard and egg sack (the egg sack is what mamaw kept for herself, papaw got the rest) and throwing the rest of the offal, and the head, to the farm dogs and cats. A cat grabbed the head and ran off with it.

She then went inside and cut up the chicken. Mamaw had likely cut up hundreds, if not thousands of chickens and she took less than a minute to do it. Her butcher knife had been made for her by papaw from an old truck leaf spring and boot heel leather for handle scales. It was scary sharp. It seemed she just waved the knife over the chicken and it fell apart into the bowl. She then filled the bowl with water, added salt and set it in the fridge to brine. She put the back into the freezer for making chicken stock. She changed the water twice to get rid of leftover blood. Later, she put the chicken into buttermilk and let it set for two hours until time to cook supper. She got it out of the buttermilk, dredged it in flour, waited until the coating softened, then dredged it in flour again and fried it in lard. Better tasting chicken you never ate.

The brining and changing the water drew all the blood from the meat so mamaw’s chicken was always clean down to the bone, none of the red nonsense you see by the bones in restaurant chicken today. The buttermilk does something magical to the meat and frying it in real leaf lard imparts a flavor vegetable oils or shortening cannot match.

As she set the table, she told papaw the story and he almost choked laughing so hard. I got a wing and a drumstick all to myself to go with the mashed potatoes and fresh chicken gravy, made from the fond, melted lard/chicken fat and leftover bits in the pan and considered myself a lucky boy.

 

05DEC2019 – American Greatness Post of the Day – Impeachment is Backfiring in the Midwest – Matt Batzel

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It’s always nice to see some numbers that confirm what you think is going on.  Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan don’t seem to think Schiff is doing the country any favors.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/12/03/impeachment-is-backfiring-in-the-midwest/

 

 

Democrat 2020 Race – 04DEC2019 Update

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Well here we are in December and Kamala Harris even ending her campaign is so boring I can barely bother to fake interest in watching her rip-cord speech.  And I shouldn’t have bothered.  She didn’t even cry or anything.  Sure, her face looked kind of spastic at points but that’s just her face.  Of course, she gave us the blather about fighting on and on for women and persons of color and colorful personal women but it looked like she was really connecting the dots hoping she can be Butt Pete’s running mate.  There just wasn’t any fun in the whole thing.

So, the highlights of the race in the last few weeks were:

  • Joe Biden and the details of the Corn Pop speech with his blond leg hair and kids playing with it in the pool.
  • Joe Biden’s No Malarkey Barnstorming Iowa Magical Mystery Tour Bus
  • Joe Biden tries to amputate his wife’s forefinger with his new shiny white dentures
  • Eric Swalwell farts on the Chris Matthews Show.

Well all right, that last one doesn’t count because Swalwell resigned a while ago.  But it actually was the funniest thing in the list.  Honestly, it’s starting to seem like even the Democrats know that they will lose in 2020 but feel like they have to hang in there just in case famine or pestilence breaks out to save them.  Unfortunately, they’re atheists and divine intervention wouldn’t take their side.

The other hope they hold is the Impeachment Show.  But it seemed to run out of gas and viewers last week and turning it over to Nadler doesn’t promise to improve things.  No, they’re going to have to try to hold the public’s interest on their own with debates and commercials and PBS and CBS specials.  But it’s hopeless.  The only non-boring actors, Biden and Sanders, are certifiable loons.  Creepy Uncle Joe gets weirder every time he opens his mouth and it can’t be long before he starts undressing on stage and challenges the audience to a wrestling match.  Bernie, on the other hand, will eventually slip up and reveal his deep longing for the return of Stalinist Russia and the good old days.

A month or two ago I threw in the towel on Joe being the candidate and assumed Liarwatha was the front runner.  But supposedly she imploded when people figured out the Green New Deal and Medicaid for All would actually mean the new tax rate would be 150% of total salary.  So now Butt Pete is “The Man,” sort of.  But let’s face it, none of them can win or even look like a realistic candidate for President of the United States.  And admittedly Donald Trump wouldn’t have seemed like a likely candidate for president a generation ago.  But the gap between President Trump and this Field of Losers from the Island of Broken Toys is disturbing.  I can only assume they’re saving the normal candidates for 2024.

All right, so that’s where we are.  Bloomfield and Patrick have joined the circus but more clowns are not going to change the equation.  I still hold out great hope that the Presidential Debates between the President and whichever midget is nominated will be a laugh riot.  But until then I’ll have to subsist on Biden gaffes and Swalwell gas.

 

War Pig’s Anecdotes on General Patton the Younger – Part 3

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War Pig’s Anecdotes on General Patton the Younger – Part 2

 

One of my very interesting readers, War Pig, was inspired by the General Patton quotes this week to provide a personal remembrance of General Patton the Younger in the comments.  On hearing that he had more stories I asked if he’d provide them and allow me to post them here.  He kindly agreed and here is the third and final installment.

 

I saw an example of Patton’s care for the troops. After the mock battle a brigade commander went to see Patton. A spec 4 (equivalent to a corporal, more or less), a very good tank gunner had gone home on emergency leave as his parents had died in a car crash and his minor brother was now an orphan. The young man buried his parents and sent his brother to live with their grandparents, their mother’s parents. He had to borrow money from Army Emergency Relief and used up all his accrued leave as he had to settle the estate and all.

The gunner got back and no more than two weeks later the grandparents were killed in a car wreck and now there were no more living relatives able to care for the younger brother. Patton was shocked, as anyone would be over such a horrible coincidence. He called the division Chaplain to get over to his office, pronto. He asked if the kid wanted a hardship discharge. The brigade commander said he did not, as he had no other job prospects to support his little brother, and that both of them were going to need mental health counseling, especially the brother. They held a skull session and Patton ordered the young man promoted to sergeant, wiped out his AER debt, got him a bigger loan and somehow took care of that, too, making it a grant, gave him 90 days “free” leave and said there would be housing available when he got back. Then Patton called base housing, demanded a two bedroom quarters for the pair, fully furnished down to towels and sheets, and to be full of groceries when the young man returned with his brother. From what I gathered, Patton paid for the groceries himself but I was back at DivArty before the kid got back so I never heard what happened.

But Patton did love the NCOs. When he was getting ready to leave for Germany the division NCOs threw him a party. There was barbecue and beer, lots of beer. Patton was there and we presented him with various sentimental gifts. As the party progressed, we were running low on beer. Patton sent two aides back to base (we were at a rec area away from the barracks areas) and had them return with several kegs of beer, for which he paid.

I did see him later, in (then) West Germany, at the Graffenwoehr training facility. He remembered me and shook my hand. He was the Deputy Corps Commander of VII Corps by then. He retired a little over a year after we shook hands. His old injuries were getting the best of him, and he developed Parkinson’s disease later. He retired in 1980 and died in 2004, aged 80. He was known as a soldier’s general. All I know for sure is that if the Soviets and Warsaw Pact had attacked West Germany in VII Corps’ sector, they would have been in for a hell of a surprise and one HELL of a fight.