The end of the barnyard king

Russell Huffman

I stumbled across a Facebook meme recently that took me back to a terrifying period in my life that can only be described as the Fido Year.

The meme in question shows a blonde-headed boy about the age of 5, and he’s screaming and crying as he runs away from a rooster. The accompanying dialog read, “Some of you have never been chased by a rooster, and it shows.”

I’m not sure if it shows or not, but this mini-version of a T-Rex has indeed chased me on more than one occasion.

Fido was his name, and he was a white leghorn rooster who ruled my Uncle Bob and Aunt Ruby’s barnyard with a pair of “40-inch-long” natural spurs (my dad said 1.5 inches) that he wasn’t afraid to use on whatever irritated him — and everything upset Fido.

The spurs inside a rooster’s legs aren’t his only weapons, and a bird’s beak and flapping feathers are intimidating to a kid. The squawking sounds like a herd of banshees when you are lying in the dirt with a rooster trying to turn you into a mud puddle.

Fido chased me more times than I remember, and often during a full-speed dash, I would turn my head to see how far behind my torturer was, and I would trip and fall.

Generally, my Uncle Bob would show up with a pair of working gloves in his hand and smack Fido across the yard. That sounds a little rough, but Fido was never the worse for wear, and he would slink off to plan his next attack on me.

My playing outside became centered around when Fido would take his flock off into the bushes, searching for bugs and other food.

Early morning was out because Fido liked to take the morning sun, and when the bright orb sat for the evening, he liked to preen and let the barnyard know the King was about to take his perch.

Aunt Ruby was irritated by Fido’s daily bullying and often commented that her husband needed to take that rooster out to the chopping block and end my misery.

“He’s protecting the barnyard,” he would say.

One Saturday, I was visiting and had been away long enough that the new Tonka toy truck I had gotten erased all thoughts of Fido, and I was whizzing around the place.

Things were fun until I wheeled around the corner of the saddle shed, and there Fido stood with those 40-inch spurs. Was that blood dripping off one of them?

“Uncle BOB!” I screamed, and that set Fido off.

I floored that Tonka trunk, and off we went until I did the old “where’s Fido peek” and wrecked out.

Fido was on me in a flash and sank a spur under my shirt and into my back, and I still bear the scar to prove it. I wasn’t pecked or scratched this time — a barnyard thug had legitimately stabbed me.

In between the screaming, flying feathers and blood stepped my Aunt Ruby, and with speed even Fido couldn’t match, she wrung his neck.

The next day, Aunt Ruby made up some mashed potatoes, corn and green beans for lunch.

The fried chicken she cooked on Sunday remains among some of the best barnyard thug I have ever eaten.