ROLLER SKATES AND LOST HAIR

       When I was six or seven years old, something awful almost happened to me. It was a warm summer afternoon and Mom sent me out to roller skate so Dad could sleep. He worked at night, so we kids were supposed to be quiet in the morning, his bedtime.

     I put my metal skates on my sensible, brown shoes, put my skate key around my neck and took off on Buffalo sidewalks. I skated past three houses on Hertel, through the church parking lot, past the rectory and around the corner to the gas station on Delaware. That's where I fell.

     When I tried to get up, I couldn't. Something was holding my hair. I tried to pull away, but it grabbed me and held tight. I couldn't move.

     I smelled hot tar and rubber, and it frightened me. Reaching around my head, I could feel a car's tire. A tire was on my hair! A car had almost smashed my head! 

     The terrifying idea whipped energy into my fear, so I pulled my head away harder. It took more than one tug but, finally, my hair pulled free. Some hair stayed under the tire but the rest of it took off with me like a shot, head aching but still round.

    I looked back after getting up some speed and the car was there still. Hadn't moved. The driver was a woman with a small hat, a veil and her white gloved hands around her throat. She was probably trying to breathe again. 

     On I raced around the corner and up the sidewalk, not stopping to cry until reaching the porch and seeing blood on my knees.  

BONNIE'S CHICKEN

    Bonnie Rollins Hardman grew up on a farm and had, of all things, a pet chicken. The chicken helped her learn responsibility, mortification and loss.  

     Bonnie's chicken liked attention. Maybe all chickens do but Bonnie's chicken demanded to be noticed. If lonely or hungry, it would pop up the back porch steps and peck at the kitchen door looking for Bonnie. 

     At this time in her life, Bonnie had several much-resented jobs to do around the house. While Bonnie admitted that she didn't have to sleep in the cinders, she felt that her stepmother assigned more chores to her than were necessary, so those duties were done without cheer.  

     One Saturday, while Bonnie had to sweep and clean, her chicken, watching her through the kitchen window, was particularly vexed with being ignored.  The chicken peck-peck-pecked at the kitchen door and Bonnie, annoyed, chased it off. The pecking came again and again so several times Bonnie stopped her work to scoot the chicken off the porch.

     Finally, totally annoyed with the chores and the chicken, she raised the broom as a weapon and ran to the door while screaming, "If you don't stop that and get the heck off the porch, I'll beat you with this broom!"

     Eyes full of fire, she opened the back door to teach that chicken a lesson... and ...stood face to face with the minister. Enveloped by embarrassment that was never forgotten, she ran off to hide in a closet, escaping the chicken, the minister and her stepmother.

     Later that summer, when she was able to face people again, Bonnie had occasion to help make turtle soup. Someone, her cousin I think, had gone fishing and caught an impressive snapping turtle.  

     The turtle was perched on the chopping block for preparation after which its seemingly harmless head lay in the dirt. The chicken, knowing no fear of chopping blocks or turtles, came to investigate. It focused on a bit of pink at the turtle's mouth and, interpreting this as a snack, the chicken pecked at the dead turtle's tongue.

     In the same way that a chicken's body can retain enough life force to run after being beheaded, a snapping turtle's mouth can still snap. The chicken thought it would gain a treat but instead it lost its beak to the dead turtle.