Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 28, 1993 TAG: 9303260024
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: STEVE KARK
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Chickens have to be among the dumbest animals that ever crossed the road. I mean, as anyone with any experience with chickens can tell you, it's a waste of time to wonder why they cross the road. They don't really have the good sense to get out of it in the first place.
Chickens don't run wild out this way; it just seems that way sometimes. A lot of folks keep them and let them run around on their own. If you throw them a little feed every once in a while, they pretty much stick around and take care of themselves - that is, until someone gets hungry.
All our ponderings about the motivations of chickens or their ancestral origins - was it chicken or egg that came first? - likely says a lot more about their widespread abundance than it does about the depth of our own philosophical meditations.
Why not consider instead the motivations of a more clearly intelligent animal - a racoon, for instance - than those of a pea-brained bird?
No, I don't really like slowing to watch chickens as they mindlessly bob their heads at my approach, engaging in full-scale flight - if you can call it that - only moments before they might have been smashed into oblivion beneath the wheels of my truck.
Such suicidal indecision is discomforting everywhere but in barnyard roosts and the halls of Congress.
No, it's not the chickens in the road that please me. It's that the road, itself, is isolated enough to make their never-ending crossings possible.
As abundant as the chickens are, I've never seen one hit. There is so little traffic on our road that their crossings could go on without hazard for a long time - at least as long as it might take for people to stop wondering why they do it.
While the scenery out here is worthy of admiration, I still relish the idea that I have to watch for these lame-brained birds. It reinforces my idea of the kind of lifestyle that attracted me here in the first place.
If you haven't guessed by now, I'm somewhat of a newcomer to country life. Although I've been in the New River Valley for more than 20 years, I was raised in a city. Chickens in the road are still a novelty. They suggest a simpler and more basic way of life to me.
You're not allowed to keep chickens in town, because they would be too much of a nuisance. Instead, you're allowed to build almost on top of your neighbors. You're allowed the accompanying traffic, as well.
And in some places, if you want to know what your neighbors are up to, all you have to do is listen. You can hear them through the walls.
I'd rather have the chickens in the road. I moved out here to get away from overcrowded towns. Like me, chickens wouldn't stand a chance in a place like that.
Uncooked, anyway.
Steve Kark is an instructor at Virginia Tech and a correspondent for the Roanoke Times & World-News. He writes from his home in scenic Rye Hollow, in a remote part of Giles County south of Pearisburg.
by CNB