Of Rooster and Boy

 * Today's post courtesy of ULTRA-Farnsworth *

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    I had several pet roosters as a boy, but none were like Willie.  Willie was a mutt.  He had long black tail feathers from the black-tailed Japanese Bantams we had, and black and gold chest feathers from the one and only Golden Seabright we had.  To finish him off, he had long feathers off his back from some Silver Leghorn up the line from him.  He was 1 of 7 rooster brothers which ran as a pack as they grumbled about at the home place.

    They kept to themselves and really didn't interact with the other free range chickens we had on the place.  One day while I was out and about the group of roosters decided they needed a hen and picked one of their own to be just that.  I quickly broke that up because no homosexuality was going to be allowed on my chicken ranch.  Willie was mortified by the unsavory turn of events, and the very next day he decided he needed to hang with a much bigger rooster, just in case. . . .

    He did what roosters do.  He sidled up to me making roosters noises, dropped his wing and strutted around my feet.  I guess that was his best hen pick up line, so I kicked at him to shoo him away, but he kept hanging around.  So I reached down and picked him up and carried him along with me as I did the chores.  From that day forward Willie was my companion when I was out doing my chores.  He waited at the front of the house when I came home from school, and he waited at the backdoor for me to come out and go about my business.

    Willie found sitting hens for me up in the hay loft in the barn.  He loved going to the hen house with me to gather eggs, feed and water the hens, and he put on his best rooster moves for the hens.  When I caught mono in the 9th grade, my mom put some paper down and roosted him on the top of a wooden chair where he preened and made rooster noises while I was sick in bed.  He was happy to sit there with me and keep me company.  Twice I thought I lost him, only to find his silly ass trapped under a bucket he somehow flipped over on himself, once for 2 days.  Man was he ever glad to see me when I pulled the bucket off him.

    We had Willie for years, and he met his end waiting for me to come out the back door.  I had moved out of my folks' place when I went off to Jr. College and started living in town.  Willie still waited for me by the back door.  One night my mom forgot to put him up and that night it decided to rain and Willie got soaked, and he became ill and died.  I never really got to say goodbye to my faithful little rooster.  To this day I still tear up thinking about him waiting for me in the rain.  Did he think, "Where is that boy? Why doesn't he come get me and put me to bed?"  45+ years later his end still bothers me.

    Just as sure as God sends people out to help along life’s path, I think he does the same with animals.  It was an unlikely friendship that really meant a lot to me.  

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Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers doing a Willie Dixon song for Willie the Rooster.

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