As summer heats up, there's an instantly recognizable odor that can be found, sorta, every few miles in the rural parts of this maybe too natural state. And we don't mean the honeysuckle. But, oh, the memories!
We love fried chicken here in the South. And if people are going to eat lots of chicken, we've got to have lots of chicken houses. Chillen, gather 'round, and ask your fathers and mothers about "walking chickens." And no, it has nothing to do with leashes.
Every season when the temperatures rise, we think back to a time before we were inky wretches, back to high school, to the days of youth. There was a girl we were sweet on (as it happens), and she invited us to work with her one Saturday. The job: cleaning out "chicken trays."
To a young and unlearned soul, this seemed like a great opportunity. Spend an hour doing a little work, get paid for the effort, and then have the rest of the day to impress the girl. Easy win.
Saturday rolled around, and we got a ride out to her quaint country home north of Dover, Ark. She led us across a dirt road to a neighbor's, the one that owned the chicken houses. Then she showed us a mountain of trays where chickens sat and "did their business" all day. And let's just clarify, there's a big difference in the odor after driving past an open chicken house and actually cleaning the trays that go in them.
We were shown a large tub of soapy water and a hose. The work order was not confusing. Pick up a dirty tray, scrub it clean in the soapy water, spray it with the hose, and stack it with other clean trays. Repeat about 1,000 times. Surprisingly, the job wasn't glamorous. But at least we'd have time alone to talk with the girl.
Imagine our surprise when she left us alone because she had her own job to do across the farm. The joy in cleaning the chicken trays quickly evaporated.
But we set to our task, starting early in the morning and working under the hot Arkansas sun all afternoon, scrubbing chicken trays clean of the fertilizer created by the chickens. Hour after hour went by, and that mountain of filthy trays slowly got a little smaller, as did our happiness in the job. By the end of the day, when the girl showed up again, the trays were finished. We were too. Tired and covered in sweat, mud, chicken droppings and ticks, we collapsed on her front porch steps.
When she invited us to stay for dinner--you know, the reason we took the job in the first place--we politely declined in lieu of a ride home, a shower and bed. She was kind enough to ask for a repeat performance the next time the trays needed laundering, but somehow we had other plans.
If there was anything we learned on that miserable hot Saturday, it's that chicken houses make for terrible places to win over a high school crush, and in fact, they're generally lousy for just about any activity except keeping chickens sheltered from the elements.
We know someone who works as an engineer designing and maintaining sanitary systems for chicken houses. He flies all over the world to install and maintain them. This guy actually goes into the chicken houses for hours at a time. We just had to wash trays outside, and it was misery. Hardier folk abound.
Raising chickens is a hard, hot, back-straining job. It's hard work feeding the country, and we're happy that know just a bit about what it's like. And have reached a point all these years later in which we can enjoy the fruit of the farm without remembering that Saturday.
Editorial on 06/10/2019