I am a radio guy…and I know turkeys can’t fly

My father loves to tell a story about taking me hunting when I was a sprout.

I can’t verify the accuracy of the account….Dreiths are sometimes liberal in their recollections….but in his story, he kills a squirrel and I run to the rodent corpse and cry out in pain at the loss of life. He loves to tell the story about his tender-hearted son who mourned the demise of a woodland creature.

OK, so I haven’t displayed any Crockett-like instincts with a shotgun in my life. I have done a little bird hunting with my buddies when I was in high school and maybe a little rabbit hunting after marriage. And I don’t remember tearing up because I don’t remember ever hitting anything with a bullet. That’s right…I am not a marksman. In fact, we all might be eating kraut if I had served in the big war.

About a month ago I applied for---and received----a turkey hunting permit to attack the docile birds of Wayne County, where my wife’s folks have acreage full of the feisty fowl.

While they have been mostly nice about it----I have the distinct feeling that Carol’s family believes she married a city slicker with absolutely no chance of calling, stalking and shooting a turkey this week. For Christmas I was gifted a tent blind by my in-laws so that I could be invisible in the forest. Just last hour, Carol’s brother called to say that he had just plowed and seeded one of his pastures on the property with oats….and turkeys love oats. He suggested I start hunting at daybreak at the seeded field.

Her Dad called also. They are trying to help

I have done this twice before….and I am oh-for-two. They all know it. In fact, I get pictures of flocks (or is it a rafter) of turkeys on the farm when I am safely off the property. I once photo-shopped my head onto an old picture of Carol’s brother when he bagged a Tom. Sent it to all of her relatives…It worked for a few days…..but soon they caught on.

They task me….they task me…..and now victory will be mine.

All winter I watched tons of turkey “harvest” shows on the Outdoor channel. I have purchased a handheld call….and I have downloaded an app on my I-phone with the various turkey clucks, yelps, putts, purrs and gobbles. Steve Jobs, rest his soul, has equipped me to succeed.

And success is the only acceptable outcome.

I will head to Wayne County in the morning under the cover of darkness…and somewhere on the family farm there is a turkey with my name on it.

It can’t fly away….because I am a radio guy…and I know turkeys can’t fly.

And once I harvest a turkey I will have it stuffed. Not with cornbread……I will take it to a taxidermist and have it mounted so it will be on display at the Dreith-a-Rosa for all family members to see and admire.

When I kill him, I won’t cry like the little fella that my Dad likes to remember.

Instead I will do a little dance.

A turkey trot.