In the Coop & Around the World – March 1, 2020
Paul the Rooster
“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” William Shakespeare
I suppose it’s a little risky to begin a chicken blog post with a Shakespeare quote – everybody will click in looking for chicken info and stories and will hastily click a retreat as I bombard them with the bard. Sorry. Stay with me. I’ll make a really quick segue to chickens in the very next paragraph.
The quote comes from “Twelfth Night” and is read by Malvolio, a comical character who has come to believe that he’s finally hit the big time because he thinks Olivia, a woman of higher station whom he longs for (and is, in fact, his employer) has fallen in love with him. And speaking of sort of comical characters hitting the big time and having greatness thrust upon them, (get ready for the segue) let’s talk about Paul the Cochin rooster. Paul is small and shy. He’s not only a bantam, but he’s a very small bantam. And he’s frizzled to boot. Let’s just say that this little guy with feathers going every which way is impossibly cute. And, honestly, I don’t think cuteness is an attribute any rooster wants to claim as his very own. Braveness, yes. Gallantry, sure. Cuteness…not so much. Paul has spent every day for most of his life staying out of the way of Emile, the alpha rooster. Emile for the most part tolerated Paul as long as Paul didn’t mess with Emile’s favorite hens, but every so often he did like to chase Paul around the coop when he was feeling peevish or needed a little exercise. So, Paul’s life was pretty much about being inconspicuous and hanging out in dark corners.
Then, in December, Emile passed on to the great coop in the sky. And ever so gradually Paul has become aware that his life has changed for the better. Not only has his antagonist gone away, but he’s now the only rooster in the coop. It's taken a while, but Paul is definitely walking around with more swagger in his strut these days. Every night he settles in on the top rung of the roost with all the coolest hens. And he seems to be crowing a lot more. Here he’s saying. "Hey everybody!" I have achieved greatness! I'm THE man!"
Montaigne in Barn Boots
So, let’s move from Shakespeare to Montaigne. No! Wait! Don’t click away! Stay with me! I promise there will be chickens in this one, too!
I’m a midwestern farm-boy who grew up, left the farm, and went on to do other things. And while I haven’t lived on a farm or been a boy for a whole lot of years, I’m still a midwestern farm-boy. That’s just how it is. So, being thus self-identified, it’s not surprising that I enjoy reading Michael Perry – a New York Times bestselling author who is also a midwestern farm-boy. I’ve reviewed Michael Perry’s memoir, “Coop” right here on the blog. Now I’m in the midst of enjoying “Montaigne in Barn Boots,” Perry’s account of his discovery and appreciation of Michel de Montaigne, the 16th century essayist. Perry’s journey, he tells us, “began on a gurney.” He was suffering from kidney stones, decided that he should write his first-person observations of that experience, and in the process of doing research for that project discovered Montaigne, who also plowed that ground a few centuries earlier. Montaigne not only wrote an essay about kidney stones, Perry tells us, but also covered cannibalism. And marriage. And flatulence. And you name it. And in fact, Montaigne actually invented the essay form.
To describe his approach to delving into the philosophical writings of this 16th century Frenchman, Perry uses the best chicken metaphor I’ve run into in a great long while. I’m still in the midst of reading the book, but I keep paging back to enjoy that bit over and over. Pardon me as I quote it at length:
“Among all the chickens randomly ravaging the slop on any given morning, there is always one who locates a prize hunk of glop, nabs it, then darts to the weeds, hoping to choke it down before the other chickens catch on…And then safely out of sight, the bird discovers the treasured goodie is too big to swallow. And so it is you will sometimes return to the pen an hour later to find the same chicken trying to gag down a knob of gristle thrice the caliber of its gullet. Unwilling to turn it loose, the bird stands there, blinking in perplexity.
“I am that chicken. I read the experts’ erudite, multilayered, cross-referential deconstructions and am left blinking, uncertain how to proceed, but unwilling to give it up, hoping if nothing else to absorb some mental nutrition via proximity and osmosis…Glacial progress is better than none…I am free to read Montaigne in first gear. To be patient with myself. To be less worried about getting Montaigne “right” and instead—in his own words—attempt to equal myself to my thefts. To continue with the reading with the habits of a piggy chicken: grabbing what I can, when I can, blinking at the big stuff, but not giving up.”
Michael Perry continues to explore Montaigne in Michael Perry mode for nine chapters. I’m somewhere in the middle. I promise a full book review sometime soon.
Randy’s Chicken Blog Is A Preschooler!
Randy’s Chicken Blog is celebrating its 4th birthday! The very first post went on line on March 1, 2016—exactly four years ago today! In the very last sentence of that first post I suggested hopefully that “there will be much more to come.” I guess I got that right. Here we are, four years and 176 posts further down the road! Later this week I’ll say a few words about the last four years, some of the stuff I’ve written about, and the most popular posts. Stay tuned!
