Some traditions aren’t really worth keeping

 

What follows is very likely to upset a lot of people, so consider this a warning. If you’re a Thanksgiving turkey fan who gushes over the fact that the President (and several governors of our states) pardon one (sometimes two) turkeys just before Thanksgiving Day, then stop reading right now. If you don’t, remember that you were warned that you won’t like what I have to say.

 

I think this archaic (albeit sometimes cute) tradition should be replaced. In the first place, I’m not a fan of turkey for any holiday. I much prefer honey-baked ham for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. Turkey is much harder to cook and serve, and there’s always leftovers for days that get drier by the day. Secondly, I grew up in East Texas, and during junior high and high school worked nights for a poultry company. My job was to go into chicken houses late at night after the birds were settled down for the night and remove them ten to fifteen at a time to crates on a truck for transport to the processing plant. Chickens were smelly, but relatively easy to deal with, but I always hated it when, a few months before Thanksgiving we’d have to go to a farm that raised turkeys and load several thousand turkeys into crates.

 

You see, unlike chickens that might squawk when you hoisted them upside down, but would otherwise remain fairly quiet and still, turkeys are evil birds. When you grab the first two or three, the rest wake up and take serious issue with being carted off to their doom. They scratch and peck, and I’ve even been dive-bombed by a malicious bird that flew up into the rafters of the structure. I still have a dimple on the back of my right hand from being speared by a turkey beak when I was fourteen.

 

The other thing I don’t like about the tradition of pardoning a few birds while thousands of others are going into ovens or fryers and then into the guts of indolent football fans, is the hypocrisy of the whole thing. Take the governor of Arkansas, for example. She pardoned the turkey in a nice ceremony but refused to pardon a mentally deficient inmate who was coerced into confessing to a crime he didn’t commit to avoid the possibility of the death penalty. The judge who sentenced him to life in prison said maybe someday a governor would pardon him or commute his sentence. Not the current governor, that’s for sure. She’s more sympathetic to turkeys than her fellow humans.

 

There’s no doubt that many people like the symbolism of this essentially meaningless act, but wouldn’t it be more heartwarming if instead, the president and the governors who do this identified some poor unfortunate prisoner who’s spent a good stretch in lockup and who poses no threat to anyone and pardon him or her instead?

 

Just saying.