It is better to be the head of chicken than the rear end of an ox.
— Japanese proverb
I was not a very good Boy Scout. In fact, my entire career in Scouting lasted less than a year, when I resigned (with my mother’s permission) having obtained the ill-sounding rank of Second Class, just one step up from Tenderfoot. Now I ask you, who wants to be referred to by your peers as “Second Class”? But I’m getting ahead of myself. The first two steps of advancement in Scouting are: A Scout learns, and secondly a Scout is tested. Little did I realize at that time what form my testing would take as I trekked toward adulthood that long ago spring day.
As a boy, I loved camping with my friends. Often, we would spend a weekend near a creek in the woods near my house, catching small catfish with a cane pole for our dinner and roasting them over an open campfire. I saw the Scouts at my school during assembly, resplendent in their uniforms with their merit badges sprawling out on their special scarves. Some told tales of exotic camping trips in places like Arizona or special jamborees. I wanted in.
So, after turning 11 years old that summer, I recited the Boy Scout Oath and properly joined Troop 524. Arizona, here I come! Soon, I was busily practicing my knots while eagerly awaiting our first big camping trip. After a couple of close-by weekend forays, our first serious trip came that next April. We were to leave right after school Friday, drive four hours and return late Sunday. At last, it was finally all coming together.
Saturday afternoon, we marched as a troop to a nearby farm where we formed up inside a large barn. “Today” our Scoutmaster intoned with a massive solemnity, “each of you will kill, clean and cook your own chicken.” It was only then I saw scattered about the barn an assortment of bantam roasters and hens, blithely pecking and scratching around us, completely oblivious to their impending sacrifice in presumably helping make our manhood. I was horrified.
To give my condition proper context, I had hand-raised nine chicks via an incubator two years earlier, trained them to do tricks and gave them all names. They enjoyed their adulthood in the safe confines of my house four hours away from this looming practice slaughterhouse. While fried chicken was and remains one of my favorite foods, I had an enormous respect for the chickens and did not see the need to earn a potential merit badge in chicken killing. My 11-year-old sense of ethics was about to be tested.
The farmer demonstrated the fine art of beheading a chicken with a small hatchet. He then dunked the still moving carcass in a large pot of boiling water to make removing the feathers easier — blood streamed down the pot as he did so. A respite of sorts emerged when the farmer told our Scoutmaster he did not anticipate so many boys, and he did not have enough chickens to go around. We were then instructed to pick a partner and choose whether to kill or clean. Fortunately, my partner wanted to behead a chicken, so I said cleaning was no problem. I grimly completed my task.
One dilemma remained: There was no way I wanted to eat this poor bird. I quickly came up with a plan. Telling my partner that I cooked at home all the time, I volunteered to roast our chicken back at the campsite. While I couldn’t really cook, I did know how to burn something. In short order, our chicken dinner was ablaze and inedible due to my unfortunate accident. Spam never tasted so good as that night. When I got home, I told my mother Scouting was not for me.
Now, I know some you will ask, what is the difference between that chicken and a catfish? All I can say is I just didn’t agree with the reason for killing the chickens.
Be nice, said the artist Austin Kleon, the world is a small town. Regrets? You bet, I’m still waiting on that Arizona campout.
Sey Young is a local businessman, father and long-time resident of Bentonville. Email him at seyyoung@earth-link.net .