I remember some of the visits to my maternal grandmother in Tell City Indiana when i was very young. We three kids had to put up with the hugs and kisses of our grandmother and great aunt Pauline. There wasn’t a lot of things to entertain us in the house, so we would go outside and roam the neighborhood looking to see if there were any kids our age. We usually found a few and played the usual games kids do at that age.
Usually then our cousins from the farm would arrive and we would have fun getting reacquainted and playing games. The adults would sit around talking incessantly about things we kids could care less about. In the meantime, grandmother was preparing dinner for the whole group. I have always been amazed at the stuff she prepared on that old Estate wood stove.
Out back of the house she had a chicken coop and yard. It was from here that the wonderful fried chicken would be acquired. I remember one day bring curious when she went out to the chicken coop and followed her. She walked into the chicken coop and the chickens gathered around her. She looked around and picked out her quarry. Then she stooped down and extended her left hand which had some silver coins in it. She gently shook her left hand and one of the chickens came up to it out of curiosity. Like a bolt of lightning, she reached out with her right hand and snapped the chicken’s neck, making it ready for boiling water and plucking.
You can believe after that display, I was careful not to disobey my grandmother.
