I could count on these regular as rain.  The phone would ring and I would answer. I knew it was Chuck of course, because on the other end would be only silence.  Chuck's idea was that when you called someone, it was up to them to start a conversation - interlaced with questions - to which he would supply grudging and monosyllabic replies. 

     The conversation would go like this... (first me). 

     "Movin' tomorrow, right?  Need help?"

     "Yep".

     "What time?" 

    "Real early". 

     "Be there." 

     (B-z-z-z-z- - this, from Chuck's hung-up set).

     They were on the cutting edge of communications, those Rhines - light-years ahead of the rest of us.  No salutation, no greetings, no hellos - no good-byes.  No foreplay either (I suppose).  "A  little less talk and a lot more action... Let's cut to the main attraction"  as the rockabilly lyric has it... But I wander... Man, what a bunch! 

     Next morning, bright and early there I would be - ready for a day of yo-heave-ho and getting Chuck's plunder jacked up and on wheels again.  Like as not, one or two other early-surly morning editors from the gang would be there, too..., perhaps yet-green to Rhineland. 

     "So it's Saturday," someone would growl.  "Why the hell do we have to do this anyway...?" 

     "Part of the deal," I would tender (this was a favorite coverall for everything - father and son).

     "Got to get your ducks in a row... get everything working..."  This added rather malevolently to these Pilgrims.  They would grumble and shift, and then wait patiently for their lot.  Truth to tell, I was regarded as one of the 'family' - and it was best not to cross any of the Rhines - strange lot, you know... 

     We would invade the house.  Like as not Chuck would still be asleep - with his shoes on, and Maggie would be feeding dogs and kids democratically from the same fry pan...  Nothing would have been packed or done, despite yesterday's blandishments that all would be ready to move out of the house upon our arrival. 

     But move it we did!  More than once, I remember grabbing each a corner of the kitchen tablecloth as all lifted in unison, and fried eggs, jam pot, stockings being darned, silverware, loose change and a can of dog food or two were all tied into a neat bundle and slung aboard the waiting truck.  Chuck would be turned out of bed, shoes and all, and in a trice the bed followed the morning's breakfast into the cavernous truck.  Clothes hangers, clothes, newspapers (read and unread), neckties (tied and untied), watermelons (in season), my .22 (leave that gun out, Mike - it's mine...), kids (washed, unwashed, crying, silent) - whatever - in an hour or two the digs would be swept clean.

     At this juncture, a cry usually went up: 

     "Tell Bernie to get Old Joe".

     I don't know why I was always assigned this detail.  Maybe it's because Life has just been one big goose chase for me anyhow.  Maybe I was unusually nimble in those far-off times.   Maybe because I once owned geese myself (having the rare distinction of having helped a vet sew up one of my geese on an operating table one bitter winter night - while simultaneously sprinkling water on my unconscious wife at my feet... but that's another tale...). 

     Old Joe was Chuck's pet goose, and he could sense an upcoming move a week beforehand.  And when the time came, Old Joe would have the wind up well before us movers - and then it was up, up, and away and around the house and grounds to run Old Joe down.  He knew every trick, Old Joe, and he could half-fly and half-sail and half-squirm and whole-peck (bam! right on the shins) with the best of them, but I always got my man... or my goose.  Thus, at last, we would set off for the new quarters - bag and baggage, goose and kids, piled high - kind of like the Route 66 "Okies" of my youth... 

     A typical move was the time we moved into the Whatmore's Gatehouse.  It sat some removed from the main road and well off the main drive, even - up at the end of its own little winding dirt road... When we were still a quarter mile or so from the house, old Joe - the world's most prescient goose - must have known what lay ahead, for with a sudden loud squawk and a whirl of feathers he flew straight up out of the truck bed and landed - running - in the woods alongside the road.  In no time, he was lost to sight, but we could hear his loud honks as he announced his arrival in the neighborhood.  He was a goose for all seasons, Old Joe, and no fox or other predator ever chewed on his bones.  Just who did chew on them I will shortly reveal but for now we must get the family settled in.

     Back on the dirt road things were coming to a halt.  Literally.  For the road, little more than a couple of tire tracks at this stage, had suddenly turned very muddy and treacherous  - and the truck wheels were spinning.  Soon we were making no headway at all.  But no problem!  Chuck, at the wheel, was seized with an inspiration: we would just jettison some of our cargo along the roadside - like a ship in a storm - and come back and get it someday "after the ground freezes over". 

     Seemed like a good idea at the time - right?   "Getting our ducks (or our geese!) in a row ... everything working...".   So, out went the refrigerator (used, from the Auction) and we left it sitting smartly alongside the right side of the drive.  A little further on, and the washing machine went over the rail to port.  And so on up to the cottage.  A pile  there, some boxes here, and eventually we arrived at the front porch.  The first crisis that arose here was that a particularly large and hideous and bulky overstuffed couch, covered in a ghastly orange fabric, would not fit through the front door.  No way! 

     And no problem!  For the couch was desired in a second floor bedroom anyhow - and here the truck was backed up right to the low porch roof in front.. We could (and did) hand the couch up onto the front porch roof.  But misfortune struck again:  it wouldn't fit through the second floor windows, either... 

     At this juncture, more pressing matters needed our attention, and it was Chuck's decision that we would just leave the couch where it was on the roof - and we "could get it later".  Trouble was, we never did get back up on the roof - and to tell the truth, everyone more or less forgot about the old couch... 

    A week or so later, after the newcomers had had time to settle in somewhat, Mr. Whatmore strolled down one evening to see how his Caretakers and their family liked their new quarters.  There had been several days of continuous rain in the interim, but "... it was a beauteous evening, calm and clear...", as the poet has it, and Whatmore was wont to stroll his grounds and bask in his  rural serenity at  such times. 

     You can imagine, then, his puzzlement as he turned into his dirt lane and here - before his very eyes! - stood a refrigerator serenely a-tip beside the road.  A few steps further, around the bend - and what's this?  A washing machine - and half full of rainwater at that!  And so his amazement grew till he came to the first bookcase - and books (all slightly pulpy now).  This strange parade of household goods seemed to be beckoning him on along his own lane - now grown alien and threatening. 

    And what was all this orange water running down the side of the road?  The color of "Nehi", it was, and gallons and gallons of it - everywhere!  And then at last, he beheld the Cottage!  But what surreal effect the new inhabitants had wrought upon it!  For there - upon the roof - by God! - was a monstrous, baggy, saggy, broken-springs-and-all - gigantic couch!  A couch, moreover, that was leaking and dripping a steady torrent of bright orange water - which had run down over the shingles staining them in golden hues along the way, thence into the leaders and down spouts - to debauch upon the walkways below in bright orange splashes. From thence this magic, fluorescing stream wandered across the head of the road and flowed off into the roadside ditches. 

     The dumbstruck Lord of the Manor soon found his attention, however, drawn to a strange, persistent gobbling, chirping, and cheeping sound all mingled into a monotonous undertone to the lunatic barking of a mongrel dog on a chain at one side of the porch ("Maggie").  Lights poured forth from every window - all doors stood ajar.   Whatmore  gingerly stepped inside the kitchen.  No one was around.  No one that is,  except the 200 turkey chicks.  In the kitchen. Arrived that afternoon.  Chuck's shipment.  Going in business: going to raise Thanksgiving turkeys.  You in the deal, Bernie?  (I was in...!). 

     Unfortunately, the unused estate barns where Chuck had planned to start this enterprise had not yet been readied - and as the weather was rainy and cool - and turkey poults are extremely sensitive to damp and cool when young - there was nothing else to do but move them in to the house.  For the present.

     To accommodate his numerous new house guests, Chuck had simply nailed a big stretch of poultry netting across the space beneath a flight of stairs up one side of the kitchen.  Into this holding pen 'neath stairs, Chuck had simply dumped all the chick trays just as they had come up from the railroad station.  Then he and Maggie and kids had driven into town to the movies and other diversions of downtown Mt. Kisco.  The combined clamor of the chicks for their supper was what had drawn Whatmore on into this Gatekeepers Cottage now become a defacto Chicken House, if you like - and moreover a Chicken House (or Turkey House, if you prefer) with no visible Head Chicken - nor Tom Turkey to preside over it... 

     But  "... these things resolve themselves..."

     Whatmore (at least on this first go-around) was mollified the next day when he learned that he, too, had been "cut into the deal" and that not only was his very own next Thanksgiving turkey numbered among the healthy multitude now resident in the Cottage kitchen - but he would share - and share alike - as to the anticipated profits come Fall... 

     The rains returned. 

     I remember that Spring as though it were only yesterday.  Chuck and I were in our guitar phase then - and we would sit and strum old hillbilly tunes and other delights - off key - by the hour in that warm and comfy kitchen of his.  'Course it wasn't exactly redolent with the aroma of pies baking or anything like that (Maggie was a most indifferent cook - running mainly to pork bellies, beans and greens and what in this later, more decadent age has come to be called 'soul food' - but which, in fact, is nothing but Southern Cooking of the lower classes). 

     But odors it did have: the odors of... the chicken house!  But to us, on rainy afternoons, it was  the sweet smell of ... money! and profit!  and splitting the swag on some cool Fall day not far distant... 

     For now, we strummed and hummed - and the big old kitchen clock on the wall ticked away.   I recall in mind's eye a tableau: 

     Chuck, leaning back on two legs in his old kitchen chair - guitar across his lap and strumming away.  (I, similarly ensconced, opposite him).  Between us stretched the poultry netting and behind it the vociferous multitude of our upcoming fortune.  Stretched out in front of the netting - "Maggie" (dog not wife, that is!).  But - what's this?  At first unseen, unnoticed, one adventurous chick on the other side of the wire struggles over the backs of his mates and gains a toehold on the netting... Using his tiny beak as a sort of hand - and much flailing with his toes - up he goes!  Hexagon by hexagon up the opposite side of the mesh - he inches his way on toward the top.  Soon he had made it to the top strand where he now perched  unsteadily - like a miniature tight wire aerialist.

     I note this herculean effort and pause in my strumming to stare.  Chuck notices too, I see - but maintains the chords and plucks on.  "Maggie" stirs  and through one very jaundiced eye notes the chick's upward progress, too. 

     And then it happens!  Suddenly the chick loses its precarious balance and down he (she?) tumbles - precipitously - on the outside of the wire.  What happens next cannot be believed (it was so fast - the blink of an eye).  "Maggie"  - as though on cue - yawns - and the chick lands plop! in "Maggie's" mouth!  A swallow or two (she didn't even get up or  shake or anything) and "Maggie" just rolled over with a contented sigh (like her namesake I suppose) and dozed on - as though nothing unusual had transpired. 

     Nor did this little event ruffle "Maggie's" master - who had watched it all through his strumming.  With scarce a break in his timing, I became aware Chuck was singing a new tune - one I hadn't known before.  Instead of being about mom, and home, and pickup trucks, and getting drunk, and jail and railroads and all ... it was mournful saga of sorts about "Pore Little Ol' Turkey - He Done Got Swallered..." and on it went for several stanzas. 

##

     Fact is, we often sang "Pore Little Ol' Turkey" long after whenever we got together with our git-fiddles... 

     As to the turkey business?  Well,  I'm afraid that proved a bust after all.  The rains of that unwholesome Spring took their toll.  The survivors lived on long enough  into the Summer to eat up several hundred dollars worth of feed and fill an abandoned shed  or two on the estate with droppings - but that was about it.  Came Turkey Day - and other arrangements had to be made by all hands. 

     This led, incidentally, to a most unfortunate turn of events for Old Joe.  For Old Joe got hisself eaten he did - and by his erstwhile master!  Seemed Chuck was flat broke as usual and his creditors were hanging on him more numerous than ticks on a hound's ear just as Thanksgiving arrived.  Stung by Maggie's (the wife) importunings regarding a "bird for dinner" that eventful day (recall Maggie - the dog - had eaten her turkey dinner - early on) - Chuck cut to the chase, as might be appropriate in the circumstances... 

     The following Monday he told me.  We were at our desks.  I idly asked over my shoulder how he and his family had fared for Thanksgiving.

     "Fine" came the answer.

     "Lots of turkey?" I asked (Though turkey was sort of a code word with us by then...). 

     Anyhow his reply came back:  "No.  Goose". 

     I picked up my ears.  "Goose?" , I said.

     "Yep" he replied.  "Ate Old Joe". 

     "You - ate - Old - Joe?", I asked - somewhat taken aback. 

     "Lord-God, Bernie (sometimes Chuck prefaced emotion laden subjects with this line) - I had to do something!" 

     Details followed.  Seems he trussed Old Joe up by the legs, hung him over a branch and decapitated him with the hedge shears.  Snip - snip - just like that!  Then Old Joe was laid away in the baking pan, with 'taters round and round as the old song has it - and roasted to a golden brown! 

     "Was - he - good?" I wondered.

     "Lord-God, Bernie - I thought so.  We ate him all..."

     "What about Maggie and the kids?" I asked.

     "Lord-God., Bernie - they  cried and cried the whole time.  I couldn't understand it.  But they ate him just the same..."

     RIP

Intermission

     Apropos of nothing in particular - perhaps - but stimulated somewhat by this stream-of-consciousness approach... I recall an old folk tune I used to sing (with guitar accompaniment) to my kids when they were babes at my knee (they loved it!)  Maybe some of my readers know it too.... 

"Fox went out on a frosty night 
And  prayed for the Moon to give him light
For he'd many a mile to go that night 
Before he reached the Town, O 
The Town, O! Before he reached the Town-O... 

He ran and ran till he came to a pen 
Where they put the ducks and chickens therein
A couple of you will grease my chin 
Before I leave the Town-O 
The Town-O, The Town-O
Before I leave the Town-O 

Old Mother Gammer leaped from her bed 
Opened her window and stuck out her head 
"John! John! the goose is gone 
And the fox is on the Town-O 
The Town-O, The Town-O"..

     Memory fails here - but the chorus celebrates the Fox's success as family provider, I remember, as a snatch returns even now... 

For they (the Fox's family)  
Never  had such a meal in their life 
And the little ones chewed on the bones, O! 
The bones, O!  The bones-O!... 
And the little ones chewed on the bones-O!