You may remember the time, especially in small towns, when nobody locked their doors. They didn't need to because in the 1930s most people didn't have anything worth stealing. Both of my paternal grandparents worked outside the home and I used to go there regularly when they weren't at home to see if they had anything good to eat like left-over cookies, pie, watermelon and such.

        Now my grandparent's house was built on the side of a hill and it had a big screened-in back porch about 20 feet above the ground overlooking the back yard AND a great big pen full of chickens.

        One day when I was out on the screened-in back porch where there also just happened to be a refrigerator that usually had something good to eat in it. Just as I got busy raiding the refrigerator I heard grandfather's chickens making terrible noises like a fox was in the hen house! At the time my grandfather had at least thirty or forty championship White Leghorn chickens.

        I looked down there and saw my worthless uncle Jack, who still lived at home, running around out there chasing them pore chickens and catching them one by one. When he had about four of them and they were squawking like crazy as he took off. I was mighty curious about why he was catching chickens so I followed him to see where he was going.

        Well, Uncle Jack wound up at a nearby grocery store where he traded them chickens for folding money! I thought, "Boy oh boy, that is a good way to get some spending money!" After Uncle Jack took off somewhere to squander his new dollar bill, probably on girls, I decided to make me some spending money too. Now I wasn't greedy so I just got me two chickens instead of four. I got me a whole fifty-cent piece for them two chickens!

        About a week later I saw ole worthless Uncle Jack out there raiding the chicken pen again so naturally I followed his example since he was such a great role model. I couldn't handle four at a time like he did, but I figgered out how to solve that problem. I made two chicken trips and got me a dollar bill too!

        Well, a few weeks after the Chicken Thieves went into operation, my grandfather began to wonder why in the world his chickens were disappearing since they weren't too good at flying. I was standing out there on that screened-in porch one day thinking about earning some more money to help buy me my Boy Scout uniform when my grandfather walked up and said, "Do you know what is happening to my chickens?"

        Well, I was quite proficient at little white lies, but I could never tell one to my grandfather. So I had to confess (sort of). I said, "I think maybe Uncle Jack has been getting them." I didn't see any need to tell him that I was helping my ole no-good chicken thief uncle. After all, a half-truth is better than no truth at all. I think.

        I don't know what my grandfather said to Uncle Jack, but one day soon afterward Jack said he wanted to teach me how to box. I thought that was strange because he had a reputation as a lover and not a fighter. Well, we put on some boxing gloves and before I could blink an eye he had whopped me a goodun and I was plum flat on the floor. I got even with him though because I got plum mad and kicked him in the shin and whopped him a good one to boot which gave him a black eye!

        To this day every time I fix my mainstay diet of Chicken Pot Pies I remember my grandfather!