Paper: Chapel Hill Herald (NC)
Title: Chicken's a little reminder of heaven
Author: Lauren Knapp-Resnik Guest columnist                                                      
Date: November 7, 2006
Section: Editorial
Page: 2

I am sitting in our horse-stall-turned-chicken-coop, squatting on a 
dusty 6-by-6 beam stretched across the dirt floor. When I reach out to 
grab Henry, my Bantam rooster, he dodges me with a routine pirouette and 
drags his miniature wings along the ground in flirtation, feigning 
coyness in front of the other big white chickens.When I finally scoop him up 
(he strolls off while everyone else scatters) I cradle him in my arms 
like a baby, with his legs shooting straight up at the barn rafters. He 
scoffs at first, but then I squeeze his tiny diaphragm, grit my teeth 
in a warm reverie and squeal, "Henryyyyy you are so cuuuuuuute!"

Poor Henry struggles for a bit, then looks up at me in amazement as I 
proceed to pull on his "feet" and gently tug at his talons. Not only is 
this outlandish and illogical, but it runs counter to any sort of laws 
of nature.

He is all at once mystified, indignant and warmed.

True, I think looking down at him, my ancestors did eat your ancestors. 
I always feel Henry's nervousness around humans (or anything bigger 
than him) is evolution, defined.

At some level he must be very aware of the fact that he, along with 
sliced vegetables in a soup pot, is the key to fixing my flu miseries. And 
at least one of my 20 chickens must speculate that I eat their kind, 
albeit outside their circle.

But as if setting aside such grave conflicts with shrugged wings, I am 
still presented with bone white masterpieces, delicate lobes of 
alabaster to nourish me daily.

Peering into a hay nest to find a pile of clean eggs is a bit like 
falling hard in love -- when you experience it, it's kind of wondrous, 
pure, exciting, new, wholesome -- and you just can't help but love the 
maker.

Fetching eggs from beneath a white rump of feathers I sometimes think 
about my great-grandfather Papaw and his son Russell who died at age 9. 
Little Russell fell out of a tree and broke his arm, and he didn't make 
it because of the bacteria, rudimentary medical knowledge and ensuing 
tetanus. My grandmother Mimi told me what she remembered about Papaw 
after his son died. She said Papaw would just go out in the chicken house 
and cry his heart out.

Mimi looked at me and tears welled in her eyes. She said, "You could 
hear him all the way down the road, the neighbors could hear him all 
night."

I think about Charles Logan Knapp -- Papaw -- sitting there crying by 
himself out in the chicken coop, as I watch my chickens peck at their 
metal feeder of cracked corn and scratch. I marvel at the mystery of time 
-- would he ever guess that here was his great-granddaughter nearly 100 
years later, hunkered down in the chicken coop, ruminating on his 
existence?

Sitting around with chickens makes me feel closer to my ancestor I 
never knew, and I wonder if the same peace I derive from watching these 
creatures patter around is somehow hereditary.

If you go down south a few hundred miles to the flip side of the 
family, my mother's, you'll find yourself in none other than La Grange, 
Texas, the world renowned city of the original Chicken Ranch, a little town 
even ZZ Top hums about.

My mother has long since removed herself from any connection with La 
Grange or her relatives there (evidently not a highlight she preferred to 
be associated with).

Yet I remember playing in a shambled chicken house on my other 
grandmother's farm and digging out a wooden cane from a pile of hay, "The 
Chicken Ranch" painted in vertical letters down its length.

Perhaps this does peg someone in my family in cahoots with the 
notorious Chicken Ranch, perhaps not.

But on a more platonic note I envisage my grandmother or her friends 
collecting "egg money" in perhaps some ceramic lidded pot in the kitchen, 
"egg money" probably the precursor to "mad money."

I watch my chickens scratch the dirt and think about this connection to 
the past.

Maybe it's more primordial, like a dog gazing into your eyes, the 
squishy layers of cat fur and padding under your fingers, the distinct 
squeak of a baby squirrel above, a balmy wind rippling leaves.

I think it's more nature's little tease, Henry's splayed wings -- 
trappings of a heaven we just might get to see.

Lauren Knapp-Resnik is a resident  of Hillsborough.

Author: Lauren Knapp-Resnik Guest columnist
Section: Editorial
Page: 2

Copyright, 2006, The Durham Herald Company