Choking the Chicken

I imagine that being a Boy Scout is a different experience today than it was when I was a growing up. Oh, I'm sure the core values are still being taught, but they've probably changed the lesson plans some. In this case, I hope so.

Scouting is all about teaching impressionable children how to survive in the woods with bullies. That's the short definition. We did other things, too. We learned fear and avoidance of bullies in city settings, as well. In places like church basements and VFW rec halls. You don't know what fear is until you come up against a paramilitary psycho, in the woods, who is proficient with knives and ropes and knots, who knows how to kill and eat things in the wild and can hide the remains from scavengers. School yard bullies tended to threaten a more generalized harm.

I mentioned the current lesson plans as having changed. I have to check it out, but I heard they give merit badges for duct tape and baling wire, now.

We really did get a merit badge for killing and eating something in the woods, though. In the current era of political correctness, over-protective parents, lawyers who specialize in fraternal organizations, and PETA, I doubt if the current batch of Scouts are killing any animals. I think the current merit badges have replaced the image of a bloody rabbit being held by its hind legs with an image of a can of Spam. Even PETA hasn't been able to track down what, if any, animals are harmed in the production of Spam.

So, back to my story. When I was twelve or thirteen, a bunch of my scrawny friends and I spent a week in the woods, mostly hiding from a much bigger kid named Lance. Lance was only a year older than us but rumor had it that he shaved already. That was one way to get a reputation for being tough, back then. Lance also has dried apple slices strung on a string and claimed they were Cub Scout ears. And he spent a lot of time sharpening his knife. So we mostly avoided him, when we could.

Our assignment that day was to break into two man teams, kill a chicken, clean it, cook it and eat it. No problem. The Scout Master provided the chickens, probably figuring if we had to catch something in the wild we would all starve to death. Everyone except Lance, that is. Every now and then, I would sneak a glance in his direction. He would be munching on a Cub Scout ear and my blood would run cold.

So, how to kill a chicken. Some kids used their Boy Scout knives . . . or tried to. Others used a hatchet to hack the head off the hapless chicken. There was much discussion as to who would hold the chicken down and who would do the actual whacking. There weren't any fingers lost that weekend but there weren't a lot of clean kills either. By the way, from an adolescent point of view, chickens running around with their heads HALF cut off are funnier, longer.

Even as a child I always tried to learn from other peoples mistakes. So my team mate and I hung back. Partly to see how not to do it and partly because we were scared spitless and didn't have a clue what to do. I was also a tidy child, as well, and I wanted to avoid the arterial spray. So we came up with a plan. We decided to hang the chicken.

Did you know that chickens can fly when they have to? Our little chicken noose and chicken gallows didn't accomplish shit. (I worked for an hour on the trap door, alone.) Plan B was to manually strangle the poor bird. Apparently chickens are proficient at holding their breath, too. Who knew? Plan C was to wring its neck. They don't like that either. Finally, when we weren't looking, the chicken committed suicide. Or we think it did, 'cause it stopped struggling and was just laying there (with a tiny gun at its side and a note pinned to its chest).

We still had to chop its head off, pluck it, clean it, etc. Oh, another little gem they threw at us was to avoid the green organ. "Don't cut or break the green organ. It is full of poison," we were told. Like we weren't traumatized enough. At this point I think I would have traded places with the chicken. Eventually we had the bird cleaned, mounted on a green wood spit, a fire going, success right around the corner . . . and it started to rain.

It rained for three days. No one had any chicken. We lived on cold canned soup, peanut butter sandwiches and Spam. (These were the days before Monty Python made Spam funny so no one giggled.)

And I learned a valuable lesson that weekend: If civilization fell, Boy Scouts would be our last line of defence and it doesn't pay to choke your chicken in the woods with a bunch of your friends.