The Rooster

I think it's cute when Rashan and I find stories we've never told each other.  It's particularly strange because we spent hours and hours in email before we spent hours and hours on the phone.  This was after the years and years of blogging we both had done before we ever met.  I managed to accidentally stumble on an untold story last night.  For some reason the rooster popped into my head last night, a day when my daddy was DEFINITELY my hero!  Our hero, actually.  My sister and I. 

We were at his parent's farm in Rowland, North Carolina.  A town I was shocked to "learn" on Wikipedia last night has over 1100 people.  Wow!  That's WAY more than I thought it would have.  Then I remembered he might actually be from Elrod which has just 441.  Still sounds like 400 more people than I've ever seen there.  The last time I went, admittedly a good 15 or so years ago, but still in the 90s, there were a few dirt roads around.  As a Charlottean, this scandalized me!  A dirt road???  In 1990?? 

My grandfather produced all kinds of things on his farm but I only remember squash (prickly things he told me to pick without gloves, then laughed when I yelped... I only have jerky memories like this of him), watermelon, pecans, muscadine grapes, pigs and chickens.  My mom liked picking things out of the garden.  My sister and I would run around in the dirt yard playing, chasing chickens and I was always seeking out a cat to pet.  I had a favorite orange one, a stray, that I tried to take home but my mom hates cats.  I just realized how hilarious it is that we chased chickens!  What???  What year was this???  I promise it was the late 80s!

My grandparents were definitely of the school that children should go play outside instead of sitting up under grown folks.  Stay out of grown folks business.  I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to enact this on other people's ill-mannered children but seeing as I'm childless and people don't generally take to kindly to such interference, I manage to keep my mouth shut.  When we arrived at my grandparents' house, usually for the 4th of July when my dad and his 8 brothers and sisters would converge on the family farm with their families and the children were sent outside.  I can still vividly see the entire house and most of the yard in my head and my grandparents died in 1989 and 1990.

One day, my sister and I were outside running around, chasing chickens (LOLOL) when suddenly the tables were turned.  We noticed all of a sudden that one of the chickens, a rooster, was semi-chasing us.  At the very least he was stalking us and that is not cool.  I was probably 7 which means she was 5.  And I was a small child.  That rooster was probably half my size.  Am I exaggerating?  I have no idea.  In my head I see a huge rooster only dwarfed when we were standing on the porch.  This thing was out to assert its dominance.  So what did it do?  It chased us around that house!  We ran inside screaming!  "Daddy! That rooster is chasing us! We're scared!"  "What??!! That rooster is out there chasing my babies?? I'll show him!"  He stomps outside and gives chase, "Get outta here! Scarin my babies!"  We cheered and jeered as the rooster ran like the rest of those chickens.  Daddy saved the day!