Wild Turkey - Meleagris gallopavo

If one is a turkey and is extant on Black Friday, one might consider oneself quite lucky. If one could reason and was aware of the human calendar. As my father reminded me often throughout my childhood, we should not attribute human feelings and thoughts to other species. (In the real world, supposedly Bambi's mother would have let him starve and eaten all the good food herself if she hadn't been taken down by the merciful bullet of the hunter. So perhaps, animal rights activists should be grateful to the hunter who by taking down the lovely doe in her prime, he - sexist but probably accurate choice of pronoun gender - actually allowed Bambi to become the sexy buck he was to become. And that is quite a feat considering the incredibly wimpy name he had to grow up with. Try being a cool dude in any forest today with a name like Bambi.)

Thus, in honor of the turkeys that are still breathing and gobbling, I will take this space today to report everything I know about turkeys. Or, actually, everything I think I know. Ofttimes I have blithely discoursed on some topic only to have my dad, or my then husband, look at me quizzically and say something kind, yet cutting like, 'you know that's not right, don't you?' or 'where did you hear that?' OK, so my mind is not a steel trap. It is designed more along the 'have a heart' blueprint.

• The wild turkey is a native of North America.


• In the wild it is wily, stealthy, and highly camouflaged.


• The domesticated version is hideously stupid. Supposedly so stupid it can drown in the rain simply because it isn't smart enough to close its mouth when looking up.


• The young are called poults (or in my family, they are called next year's Thanksgiving dinner)


• Benjamin Franklin wanted them to be named the national bird. (I assume that plan went down the tubes when they did a taste test between the fish eating Bald Eagle and the largely vegetarian Wild Turkey).


• The U.S. President routinely pardons at least one turkey a year in a ludicrous ceremony before Thanksgiving. And then, quite probably, heads off to enjoy the slaughtered carcass of the freed bird's unlucky cousin. (Thus the true downside to being the black sheep in a turkey family)


• When one enters Wild Turkey into Google search, the alcohol version is the first hit.


• A roasted Wild Turkey on Thanksgiving is incredibly rich, juicy and succulent and once you've had that, the domestic variety pales in comparison.


• The original Thanksgiving feast was not centered around turkey, but instead probably boasted plenty of venison and oysters.


• Wild turkeys can fly (they roost in trees) but domesticate ones are often too heavy to take to the skies (makes it easier to get them from barnyard to table)

And now that my mind is empty of Turkey facts I'll go rustle up some leftovers.