Chickens are the world's most abundant reptile, amphibian, mammal or
bird. I read this in a book. Twenty billion of them world-wide. After tennis
on Saturday, I went outside to watch the light on the trees, sit still, drink a
beer, read. I took chips with. The girls wandered up. I brushed crumbs off
my trousers and they cleaned up. I expected consequent begging, shoe-pecking
even--they can be quite intrusive when hungry, which seems to be nearly
always--but no, they wandered off, as if there were better things to do under
the trees. As she disappeared behind the "Neverbudge," Appenzeller said
something very like, "Cha-cha-cha."
Chickens are very good at perceiving color. Red sets them off. Some
guy decided, according to Noah Strycker, "The Thing With Feathers," that what
chickens require, if there is to be world peace, is the functional equivalent
of rose-colored glasses--forty billion red contact lenses. He lost a fortune
trying the idea out.
I went in search of Trillium, hoping to find that the girls had not yet
developed a taste for one of my favorite plants. Their latest passion is the
cherry blossom, which they gobble the moment it reaches touches down. I idly
wondered, given this taste, and their ability not only to fly but also to
perch, why they don't try to reach the source. I must have said the question
out loud because there at my feet was Cheddar, with an answer, "We're
terrestrial animals, pretty much. Wensleydale was clear on the subject. Leave
to the gods what is *of* the gods."
"You don't see me in trees," I pointed out. "Or flying. What you do see is
other birds."
"A crow is a crow is a crow," she responded, somewhat enigmatically.
"Seen any trillium?" I asked, hopefully.
"Matter of fact," she said, "you'll find one over by the 'Neverbudge.'"
"You wanna go see?"
"Thank you but I'm off to the dance."
"Dance?"
"It is Saturday night."
"Chickens dance?"
"You bet."
"Can I watch?"
"It's ceremonial."
"Let me guess...something else Wensleydale taught you?"
"Actually," she said, bristling, "*I* am the Artistic Director."
"Is this a world-wide phenomenon, do you know?"
"I cannot tell."
"Only I was wondering--of course the time difference might take care of the
problem, but forty billion feet..?"
She gave a little wiggle. "Cha, cha, cha."
Busy on a book about the promise of philosophy, I changed my mind and
decided to write about the inconstancy of history. I then slid over into the
friction of physics, which I swapped for the infelicity of chemistry. A sniff
at nosology, as found in nineteenth century biology, resulted in categorical
problems. Then came dabbling in the arts, which attracted ducks. In a search
for my true identity, I hit the jackpot; it was under my keys.
Here are the facts: the son of a Polish jew, he was born in 1926 in
Paris. The father was a chemical engineer who was lucky enough or smart enough
to move to Buenos Aires before the war. The father died in 1943, of a cerebral
hemorrhage. The son's first job was in a tire recovery factory. The mother,
who was from what is now Ukraine, moved the family to New York, where her
brother Boris lived. Our subject joined the French army in 1946, was promoted
to corporal, served in an Alpine Infantry Battalion as an illustrator and maker
of posters. He returned to New York, then moved back to Paris where he met
Alberto Aleandro Uderzo, son of Italian immigrants to France, who had spent at
least a year of the war working on a farm in Brittany. In 1959, our man René
Goscinny invented a Gaul who could conquer all, the hit fantasy of postwar
France, Asterix. He let Uderzo choose where Asterix's village would be located
and that man chose Brittany. Born of immigrant parents, distant from the war,
two men thus created the story of French ancestors taking up arms against the
might of an empire, and winning every time.
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
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