Turkey Chasin'

This is another story from Ronnie, this one is about him when he was younger.   Apparently those turkeys were really good at outsmarting him.   :)  Also if it reads funny, just remember that it is a transcript from the recording of him telling the story.

We used to raise turkeys when I was in high school, 6000 a year.  Well when the turkeys got about 6 or 8 weeks old you’d move out of the brooder house out into the pasture, just build a fence around em, you know.  And it was always my job to haul the water to them, if you took the water away from them on a hot day, they’d die because they had to have water.  So we’d take the tank to the pond at night, just about the time the sun went down, when they was about to go to roost, and take it back to them before they got up the next morning, then they was never out of water in the daytime.  I went to the turkey pen one night after the tank and there was one turkey on the outside of the fence, and if he stayed on the outside of the fence the foxes would usually get him so I decided I’d get that turkey back inside the fence. 

Now a bunch of tame turkeys will follow you, they don’t run from you like a chicken.  So I decided I’d raise this fence up and tie it up on a post and then I’d crawl through there and I’d lead the turkeys to the other side of the pen and this turkey on the outside he’d run under there then I’d run over there and let the fence back down.   Everything went well until I started to the backside of the pen and  this stupid turkey, and by the way turkeys are stupid, they’re the stupidest thing on the face of the earth, but anyhow I went to the backside of the turkey pen and this one lone turkey went all the way around the outside of the pen to get around there to me.  So I said ok if you wanna be that way, now since I’ve got the rest of them over there I’ll just chase this one turkey over there and he’ll run under the fence and i’ll drop it down and good enough.  It was kinda hot and sticky that day as it usually is around here in the summertime, but when you’re chasing a turkey he’d stick his beak straight up in the air. Well I’d get him right up to that fence that I’d raised up, and I wasn’t very big and I’d raised that fence just as high as I could get it, and that turkey would catch his beak on that bottom wire and he’d turn around and run the other way.  Course by now the rest of them was coming back this way, so I’d go to the other side of the turkey pen again and here’d come the turkey outside of the fence, so i’d chase him back around there and we went through this about three or four time,  I was getting a little warmed up in more ways than one and on the side of this water wagon we always kept a steel rod to measure the water in the tank so we knew how much was in there  and about the third or fourth time around the turkey pen after that turkey I grabbed that measuring rod off that water wagon and I swung it at that turkey and it hit him right  square on top of the head, and he didn’t squawk, he didn’t flop he didn’t do nothing he just laid down there and died.   And we had to have turkey for supper.

*According to Grandma Sobotka they didn’t actually have turkey for dinner that night.  She said it might have been the next night.   :D

The Goose and the Gas Man

The story of the goose and the gas man, told by Ronnie.  I've heard before that after he left the gas station Grandpa Sobotka was laughing so hard about this that he had to pull the truck over several times on the trip home.  :D  This is one of my personal favorites.

Growing up we had a pair of old geese, and an old goose and especially the gander, will get a little possessive and territorial.  And this old goose got to where he’d chase people, he wouldn’t hurt you much, he’d pinch you on the heels with his beak a little bit.  If you’d run from him he’d chase you.

 Anyway, Grandpa told us kids one time, “If the old goose gets after you, you reach down and you grab him by the neck.”  And a goose’s neck is the toughest thing in the world, you can’t hurt a goose’s neck, in fact I’ve seen Grandpa pick him up by the neck and shake him and put him back down, but that was our defense against the goose, was to grab him by the neck.  One day Ed and Fred was out there in the garage playing around and the gas man come to bring the tractor gas.  He backed up out there, and he pumped the gas into the gas barrel, and he started towards the garage to put the ticket in there on the shelf, and the goose got after the gas man.

They was a running around the tractor lot out there, and the old goose was a honking and a flopping his wings and making an awful commotion.  And them two boys stuck there heads out of the garage and they started to yelling “Grab him by the neck, grab him by the neck!”  And the gas man he run back to his truck and went back to town and didn’t leave no ticket.

Well a few days later Grandpa went to town and he stopped by the station to pay the bill.  The gas man says “George them boys wasn’t very nice to me the other day.”  Grandpa said, “Well what happened?” The gas man told him the story and then he said, “And them boys started yelling for that goose to grab me by the neck!”

Grandma and Grandpa Sobotka's Wedding Day

This is the story of Grandma and Grandpa's wedding day as told to me by Grandma.  Apparently back then the thing was to get married in secret because friends of the bride and groom had a bad habit of playing tricks on the newlyweds.  :)

It was raining and we lived at the top of the steepest hill around and he(Grandpa Sobotka) come early, cause my mom said you know what he’ll be early cause it’s going to rain, and he was, he got there about an hour early. Anyway I don’t remember if I was ready when he got there or not but probably, and we went to Princeton to the courthouse and got our marriage license.  Then went to the preacher’s house and he got two of his neighbors to be the witnesses and got married. And it rained while we was there and he said that was our wedding shower.  From there we went to St Joe and bought some furniture and that was our wedding day.

Rindercella

Every year when we go to Missouri Ronnie tells us the story of Rindercella.   This year he was a bit stubborn and Erica had to whine at him for a while to get him to tell it, but he finally did.  At first he said he didn't remember it, so just to make sure he doesn't use that excuse again here it is transcribed exactly from the recording I did of him this year.   My spell checker about blew a gasket when I was typing this one out!

Rindercella

Once upon a time there was a geautiful  birl named Rindercella who lived in a coreign fountry with her mugly other and her two sad bisters.  Now in that same coreign fountry lived a pransome hince and he decided that he was gonna have a bancy fall.  So he invited all the people from all over that coreign fountry to come to his bancy fall, especially the pich reople.  So Rindercella’s mugly other and her two sad bisters went out and bought some dancy fresses,  you know to where to the bancy fall, but Rindercella gouldn’t co cause all she had was rirty dags.

 Well the day of the bancy fall finally came and Rindercella’s mugly other and her two sad bisters put on those dancy fresses and set out for the bancy fall and Rindercella crat down and sied.  And she was crating there sying when all of a sudden her gairy fodmother appeared with her wagic mand  and she waved that wagic mand and there appeared one of the danciest fresses you ever did see, and she said, “Rindercella you go to that bancy fall, but you must be home by nidmite or I’ll purn you into a tumpkin.”  And about that time there was hix white torses and a cagestoach pulled up in front of Rindercella’s hous,e you know, ready to take her to the bancy fall. 

So Rindercella went to the bancy fall and the pransome hince met her at the door, because he’d been watching for her from a widden hindow.  And they nanced, and they nanced, all dight and they lell in fove.  Then all of a sudden Rindercella head the slock crike, and she raced out of that bancy fall, and stown the dairs, and when she beached the rottom she slopped her dripper.

Now the next day that pransome hince searched all over that coreign fountry for the geautiful birl what had slopped her dripper.  Finally he came to Rindercella’s house.  And he tried it on her mugly other but it find’t dit, then he tried it on her two sad bisters and it find’t dit, then he tried it on Rindercella, and it fid dit!  And they mot garried and lived appily ever hafter.

Now the storal to the mory is this:  If you wanna lall in fove with a pransome hince, don’t forget to slop your dripper!