Thank me.

Every Thanksgiving my mind drifts back many years when I believe I spotted a burly, living turkey waddling around outside a dog house behind a chain link fence on a front lawn of a house in the vicinity of St Johns. The image gets murkier with time. Putting the word out through Facebook never revealed anyone with a more distinct memory than my own. I believe what I saw. The Turkey of St Johns has become a Thanksgiving totem I memorialize. It was real. I know I saw it regardless of whether anyone else ever did.

Turkey Jerky

Call me David. Some years ago, never mind how many precisely, having little to no obligations in my life, and nothing to interest me in my own neighborhood, I thought I would wander about a little and see parts of St. Johns. In this way I found myself riding my bike, and now venting my spleen after having circulated through the neighborhood. Whenever I find myself growing grim this month, when it’s this damp and drizzly November, whenever I find myself pausing, lost in a memory of that unforgotten turkey and bringing up the image of a funeral for that possibly, long gone bird and especially whenever my hypochondria gets an upper hand of me that it requires a strong impulse control to stop me from thinking I’m sick of not knowing about the Turkey of St. Johns, then going anyway and knocking on doors in the general vicinity where I remember seeing it and screaming, “WHERE’S THE TURKEY AT?” Then I account it’s high time to stay out of St. Johns as much as I can.

Possibly a good book.

I quietly take to thoughts of that turkey. It doesn’t surprise me being a mystery I’ve been unable to solve for many years. This is my substitute for loneliness and no actual live turkey. I don’t have to get all philosophical and name drop Cato and talk about him leaping into his sword. That whole thing sounded horrible, by the way. These feelings are not that dire. I just want to remember a turkey I saw long ago. If no one knows anything, maybe not even some guy with a degree who’s really smart, someone or another might cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the Turkey of St. Johns with me.

Faster than a turkey?