Stories Involving Chickens – Earth and Midnight

Wisconsin Ivy League Adventures

My mom and I met a handful of times in the same area of Wisconsin for our Adventure Weekends. We usually stayed at the same cheap motel in the tiny town of Oxford because it was almost exactly halfway between us. We’d always end up driving around the area and exploring the towns, attractions, and countryside within about a forty-mile radius of the motel.

Whoever was in charge of naming roads out there must have had a sick sense of humor. You’d find Evergreen Lane right near Evergreen Road and Evergreen Court. 18th Road was not far from 18th Lane, 18th Drive, and 18th Avenue. Elk Road was by Elk Court and Elk Lane. And those are just a few examples. It’s a good thing we were on vacation and weren’t in a time crunch.

Here are some of the adventures we enjoyed there:

We found a miniature horse farm and got out to take pictures and feed them grass through the fence. Another time, it was a herd of cows.

I had read online that during one of our visits, you’d be able to see the crane migration at dawn in a certain area. We got up super early and drove out to the area described online, but we didn’t see a big flock or other cars congregated in that area. At least we tried.

I had also seen a bison farm advertised online. We tried to find it a couple times before we ended up coming upon it accidentally in a new location. Man, did those bison bolt when I got out of the car, and those things can run!

We visited a native plant farm, walked through their display garden, and bought some seeds.

Once, we walked from our motel to a tiny local library, where we found a table heaped with magazines they were giving away for free. We each took a little stack and spent the evening paging through our finds.

We stopped at a few garage sales we saw along the road. One of the homeowners had chickens. At the time, my mom was considering getting backyard chickens, and the owner talked to us for a long time about raising them.

We ate at a couple mom & pop restaurants.

We ate picnics in a park across from a farm field, where we watched a pair of sandhill cranes feeding.

We walked along the boardwalk by a lake, lounged on a wooden porch-style swing, and crossed a curved bridge with petunias dripping from the railings.

After a couple attempts, we finally found a trail leading to the top of a hill that we had heard about. We hiked to the top and viewed the sunset from a cluster of giant boulders, then scurried back down through the woods before the light faded so we wouldn’t get lost.

We went to a local art fair in a city park.

We shopped at a flea market.

We stopped at antique stores and thrift stores, plus other shops that caught our attention: a garden center, a greenhouse, a global gift shop, a gift shop that supported local artists.

We made a pilgrimage to an Amish bakery in the middle of nowhere.

We visited a bunch of tiny, old-fashioned main streets. The town of Princeton’s main street included a small public garden with benches, a curved walking path, hanging baskets, antique-style garden art, and a cafe table and chairs under a gazebo [Megow Park].

One of the most surreal encounters (in my opinion) was walking from an ice cream shop to the city park in downtown Green Lake and passing a guy playing an upright piano on the front porch of a house. I’m not used to hearing live piano music, with its natural volume and resonance, played outside in public.

This is also the area where we found the Rubber Chicken Fling [see story here].

It was at one of the thrift shops in this area that I bought a two-disc CD set called Lifetime of Romance. I got it because I recognized and liked some of the songs: Etta James singing “At Last,” The Righteous Brothers’ cover of “Unchained Melody,” and Patsy Cline’s version of “Crazy.” I’m not sure if my definition of “romance” involves failed relationships, but at least you could argue that it deals with the topic of love. Bafflingly, the opening song on the second disc is Bobby Darin’s “Mack the Knife.” In case you aren’t familiar with the song, it’s about a serial killer. I still don’t understand how that song choice got rationalized into the compilation.

Anyway, this album introduced me to the song “Stranger on the Shore” performed by clarinetist Acker Bilk. Whenever I hear it now, it’s always infused with memories of these long weekends in Wisconsin. To me, this song embodies the feeling of Those Lazy Days of Summer, a Sunday drive with the windows down, green fields sprawling for miles, heavy air, nowhere you need to be, wanting it to last forever.

On the Way to Arcola

On my way to Arcola, IL, I had seen a speck on the map called Chicken Bristle, and I set out to find it. I thought it would be fun to take a picture of the city limit sign. I think I found the town, although I never saw any sign. A cluster of houses sat where the speck had been on the map, an island in an ocean of cornstalks. The roads near Chicken Bristle were paved and one-lane, set in a grid. The cornfields flanking each path created almost a tunnel effect. I wondered what would happen if a car came from the opposite direction, but I never found out. Sometimes, when I dream, I’m walking down that same blacktop, protected by armies of corn. My footsteps make no sound. The corn is always green, and it is always summer.

The Chicken Cheats

Several summers ago, I went on getaway weekend to Arcola, Illinois. The biggest attraction there was Rockome Gardens, which was basically a theme park about Amish culture. [Sadly, this attraction closed.] There were the actual gardens, which may have been pleasant except for the photographer parent trying to get a perfectly posed shot of his two-year-old. “Kayla, come over here. No- stand right here. Don’t move. Now look at me. Kayla, look at Daddy. Kayla. Kayla! Look at Daddy. Kaaaaylaaa. Kayla, turn this way. Look at me. Look at Daddy. Kayla, look over here. Look at Daddy. Kayla. Look at Daddy.” There was a museum, a barn with farm animals, a woman who demonstrated weaving on a floor loom (and who let me try it), and a souvenir shop filled with canned green beans, homemade fudge, and other old-fashioned edibles. I paid extra to take a buggy ride with an actual Amish driver. It was here that I played tic tac toe with a chicken. Yes, the chicken won. Twice. I knew it would. But let me tell you something: the chicken cheats.

The game was in a box about the size of a vending machine. Half of it displayed the electronic gameboard and instructions, and the other half housed a live chicken. The poor thing was panting in its little plexiglass enclosure. Part of me didn’t want to participate (and encourage housing chickens in plexiglass boxes during summer). But when would I get another chance to play tic tac toe with a chicken? Novelty won in the end.

I fed my money into the machine. The rules state that the chicken goes first. Once the game started, the chicken hid behind this partition, but I was spying on it to see how it operated. It would peck at this button until a kernel of corn dropped down a chute. The chicken’s move would register on the gameboard. After gobbling up the corn, the chicken would peek its head underneath the partition and stare at me with one eye until I pushed a button to make my selection on the gameboard. Then its head would disappear underneath the partition and the pecking would start again. On the second game, after the chicken made its first move, I put my finger out toward the game board, but I hesitated. As I was deciding which button to press, the chicken took another turn. She probably didn’t cheat intentionally. Oh, well- she would have won anyway. [The strategy of having the chicken go first is orchestated so that the best an opponent can do is tie.] If you ever get the chance to play this game, be warned! Those chickens will try to get away with anything!

Photo: twined rug

Fling the Chicken

My mom lives a five-hour drive from me. Sometimes, on long weekends, we’d meet halfway for an Adventure Weekend. Usually, we’d stay in a cheap motel in some town that’s a tiny dot on the map, surrounded by a lot of space. We’d spend our days exploring the area and visiting other tiny towns nearby.

It was one Memorial Day weekend that we discovered Princeton, Wisconsin’s annual Rubber Chicken Fling. The event takes place in the city park. A goal post is set up, and everyone in attendance is invited to try flinging a rubber chicken through it. Whoever throws it farthest wins.

The emcee kept urging us to join the action. “If you’ve never chucked a chicken, now’s your chance!” The mascot, a man dressed in a bedazzled Elvis jumpsuit and a chicken head rubber mask, mingled with the crowd. We had dozens of chances, and neither of us touched a chicken. Why not?

My regrets are all the same: a long list of things I didn’t do, things I didn’t say.

Months ago, when I began seriously forming the idea of a nation-wide road trip, I thought about what the purpose would be. I didn’t want to just stay in hotels and visit tourist attractions; I wanted to experience a transformation. One day, an answer suddenly came to me: Fling the chicken.

It’s the same advice I’d give my younger self: Get involved. Try everything. Go everywhere. Take every opportunity. Fling that chicken while you’ve got the chance!