From the East Wing with Mechanically Separated Chicken and Watching an Angel Fly

Greeting to all and welcome new friends to the East Wing,

One of the true pleasures in my life is to set at the same table each week and talk to you from the keyboard, and one of the perks of that task is looking at my favorite tree in the yard, the large Maple Tree standing directly between my computer and the road, 800 South. Watching this tree every week at pretty much the same time allows for me to observe things that ya just wouldn’t see if ya just looked once in a while.

Setting here in the East Wing by the warmth of the fireplace, this day after Halloween, while the outside temperature hovers at 48°F my beautiful Maple Tree gave up the last gleaming rays of summer past, as a sudden northwest breeze pulled the final leaves of my favorite tree. Much the same way as that unseen mechanical monster referenced in the very, very small print on most packaged meat products. “Mechanically separated chicken.”

Now what the hell is mechanically separated chicken? Imagine, if you will, a Rube Goldberg type machine, four stories high, no windows, just one small door on the front, with an even smaller door on the other end of the building, and painted Snow White, with chickens, as far back as the horizon, marching up to and stepping on a conveyer belt that takes them into this enormous, growling, light blinking, steam blowing, dials turning, motor humming, smoke puffing, gurgling, pulley spinning, vibrating, environmental polluting, Ozone depleting machine. On the far end of this chicken receiving apparatus, delivered by conveyer belt, chicken pot pies, in unison with the step of the chickens. While all the steps between walking chickens and pot pies, are shrouded in mystery. A flip of a switch and the conveyer delivers McNuggets, Hot Wings, Drum Sticks, or even hot dogs, all from one magic switch.

An inconspicuous spigot on the side of the machine is right next to a white Styrofoam Cup Dispenser. Over both spigot and dispenser, a sign which appears to be painted with a black spray paint can and a stencil says “Chicken Soup”

Mechanically separated chicken. I wonder what else is mechanically separated that they don’t even bother to tell us about. There surely must be more, my best advice is read the labels. Labels don’t lie but liars label. They try to sneak that stuff in on ya ever time they can.

Wow! After seeing one of those machines that do such unthinkable things to those poor chickens, it’s easy to mistrust the government. Now you can see why there was so much hate and mistrust of the Bush Administration, (damn republicans) allowing such atrocities to occur in our society and keeping it from the American People. Having Dick Chaney run all over the place, shooting people and all, trying to cover up the real mess they created by their industrialization of the hand feather picking profession.

One need look any farther than your local newspaper to see page after page of job wanted ads of feather pickers advertising for chickens to pick. That workforce is idle, doomed forever to be included in the government projected number of total unemployed workers. Professional Chicken Feather Pickers do not retrain into new job skill easily. It’s hard to learn to weld after ya’ve plucked the down.

No wonder the new Attorney General is looking into giving chickens the same legal rights as the illegal aliens. After all something has to be done, these helpless chickens deserve to have fair housing, food stamps, health care, and education in their native language, and to have legal counsel, the Lord knows we have enough lawyers to go around. We brought ‘em here from Africa, no not Africa, they came from the egg. I don’t know who brought the egg.

The fact remains that the survivors of chickens who so bravely faced the mechanical separator and lost, deserve recompense. Untold generations have suffered at the hands of the chicken owners. Through no fault of their own they find themselves underprivileged , undereducated, disadvantaged, and without food or shelter, except that provided by the chicken masters. Just living from day to day, not going to school, and talking that chicken coop ghetto rap, and doing crack (corn).

Unable to take their rightful place in society this group was secretly wooed at night as the chicken owners slept in their warm beds, enjoying dreams of pot pies, chicken soups, chicken breasts, dumplings, thighs, and other abominations against the chicks.

Under the cover of darkness, coops throughout the land were infiltrated with professional Chicken Organizers who had been specifically trained in the fine art of chicken organizing, down to the detail of instructing receptive hens in the fine arts of clucking. While the roosters were tutored in the social skills necessary for the correct public cock-a-doddle-doing and the overall chicken community self esteem was lifted to a new height due solely to this invasion of the Community Organizers Chicken Organizers.

But like so many things in life, this too had a price, a sinister side, a dark side, the side exposed to the shadow of the valley of death. There was secret evil intent on the side of the Chicken Organizers. They had not come to the chicken communities for the good of the chickens, rather to do the bidding of their own masters. WWCCOA, it was carried by the wind on the fears of the feathers.

After gaining the Chicken Community trust, the World Wide Chicken Community Organizers Association (WWCCOA) set about doing their dastardly deeds. The chickens being dumb and honest provided all the personal information requested by WWCCOA, after all they were all in the same coop.

When the questioners were completed, name, date of hatching, sex (h or r) coop address, feather color and comb style were all the items needed to pull off the largest identify theft since the history of the egg.

In no time at all, WWCCOA had millions of identifies, all computerized by zip code. Social Security Numbers were received, Credit Cards were obtained, Medicare Claims were filed. Federal Housing Subsidies for coops were a major source of income. As the money rolled in WWCCOA found new avenues of producing income streams. Selling the chicken database.

Then National Democratic Party bought 40 million chicken identifies and included them in the 47 million American without health insurance. The democrats registered 14 million chickens to vote.

Not to be out done. The National Republican Party bought 50 million chicken identifies, after being told by WWCCOA that the democrats had bought 50 million, and promptly announced that only 12 million of the chickens didn’t have health insurance. The republicans registered 15 million chickens to vote.

It turned out the chicken registration in Chicago was being held back to see if it was needed. It was.
Mayor Dailey announced that 2 million additional registrations had been overlooked when the original count was concluded, so it boosted the democrats chicken registration to 16 million.

With income from Medicare Fraud, Credit Card Fraud, Federal Housing Subsidies Fraud, Social Security Payments Fraud ya would think there would be enough for all. All this paled compared to the real purpose of WWCCOA. WWCCOA was created for the sole purpose of supplying the demand. The demand had to be met, forever the demand had to be met. Whatever it takes is the motto of WWCCOA.

And so the line never ends, all day all night, every day, every night. At night the big machine is illuminated with such bright spot lights its white color seems to glow.

Should ya stand by that line of chickens stretching back to the horizon, and ask one why they’re in line. The same answer is always given,“Oh the Chicken Organizer gave me a ticket, I’m going to get to see the inside of the White House”.

As you start to turn away from the line of chickens, in the corner of your eye ya may see someone pull down a white Styrofoam cup, turn the spigot, and sure enough, Chicken Soup. Mechanically Separated Chicken Soup.

There is a time for every ting, a time to laugh , a time to cry, a time to live and a time to die. Last week I lost a friend, a girl friend, a mother-in-law, and so, so much more. It was a time to cry.

The first time I saw her, she was Lucy Griffo. On a warm Saturday Morning in mid September, 1960 I knocked on her back door. She came to the door and asked “Can I help you?” I said “is Regina home?”

Lucy looked at me as only an Italian Mother with a beautiful 16 year old daughter can look, when a 16 year old hillbilly boy from Toto knocks on her back door. She looked into my soul. She got Regina. Regina invited me inside. She introduced me to her family. They were different people than my family. They were Italian.

A few weeks after that I introduced Regina to my family. They all fell in love with her at first site. ( We’d never seen an Italian before, and she was the prettiest girl we’d ever seen)

It was not too long after that, that I was once again setting in the swing on the front porch on a Sunday Evening with my dad. My dad and I sat a lot in the swing on the front porch on Sunday Evening, just about every Sunday Evening. We talked man to boy stuff. Sometimes we didn’t even have to talk. As we swung that evening I said “I got a girl friend”. My dad said “I’m not surprised. She’s a pretty girl”. I said “Yep”.

We swung for a long time and didn’t say anything. Then my dad said “BobbyRay don’t ever do anything with your girlfriend that will make me not be proud of you”. I said “Ok” And I kept my word, ‘cause when ya said something while setting in the swing with your dad, ya had to keep your word. My dad always kept his word and so did I.

When Lucy decided I was not going to go away, no matter what, she decided to just love me instead, and she did. She told me so and showed me so for 49 years. I loved her as my mother. I’ll miss her forever.

To resolve my feeling of loss, I finally concluded it was just time that Lucy stop being a Grandma and start being an Angel. The time had come. I believe in Angels.

Thank you so much for this first day on November visit. I along with 2dogs, 1cat, 1Angel and 1wife do so appreciate your visit and enjoy your company in the East Wing.

Stay safe in Baghdad, South Iraq and Afghanistan

From the East Wing with Mechanically Separated Chicken and Watching an Angel Fly

I wish you well,
BobbyRay