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No one sneaks up on guineasBy Gary Carden |
Gary Carden |
Back when Cherry Street was a little dusty lane bordered by blackberry thickets and Uncle Albert's '39 Ford left a boiling funnel of dust in the summer heat that slowly settled on the kudzu thickets in Rhodes Cove, I used to ride with him every chance I got.
He drove too fast and I liked to pretend that we had just robbed the Jackson County Bank and we were on our way to our underground hideout somewhere on Painter Knob. By the time we took the turn at the Cherry Tree (where the Shell Station is now), the noise would start building, and when we sailed over the Cope Creek bridge, the air would be thick with alarm. It wasn't sirens though. It was Miss Kitchens' guineas. Miss Kitchens lived in a white frame house with a green roof and a huge fenced yard down where Caldwell Street intersects Cherry Street, and she kept several hundred guineas. Any time a car came through, a truck backfired or a siren sounded somewhere up the Cullowhee road, they went crazy. I read somewhere that guineas aren't native to this country and that somebody brought them here from Africa or Egypt. I think they have always been homesick and nervous in the mountains, and they are pretty sure that there is a plot to slaughter all of them. They are on their guard for any telltale signal that death and destruction has come. |
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I guess they figured that Albert was their harbinger of doom, so each time he bounced across the bridge and shifted into second before roaring up the hill to our house, they screamed and cackled hysterically. The end had come! "Flee," they said. Albert loved it. Sometimes, he would turn around and make a second sweep past Miss Kitchens' house.
"Listen to that!" he would say as the patteracking of the guineas increased. Then, he would toot the horn and laugh as they got even louder. During the summer months, there was always at least one dead guinea in the road - grim proof that their terror was justified. Sometimes, when I rode my bike down to Ensley's store for a Nehi, I would see those black and white critters with the tiny heads staring at the dead brother in the road (at least, I thought that is what they were doing), and their voices would be raised in lamentation. "Oh, woe," they squalked. "Guinea life is full of sorrow! Grief and misery! Help, help! Alas and Alack!" Albert told me that guineas were the favorite bird of bootleggers. "The Feds and the revenuers can't sneak up on a still that is guarded by guineas," he said. "One broken twig or muffled cough, and they are going to go crazy." "Is Miss Kitchens a bootlegger?" I asked. "Not likely," said Albert. "I guess there are exceptions." "So it is possible to have guineas without being a bootlegger?" "Well, anybody with a 100 guineas might not be making moonshine, but they would be suspect." When Pearl Harbor was bombed and Albert joined the Navy, I began to develop fantasies about routing the Japanese. Although the guineas were black and white, they became "the yellow peril," and I sometimes pedaled my Belknap down the hill to attack the invading hordes. "Quake in fear, evil Huns," I would shout, using the terms I was picking up from the "March of Time" newsreels at the Ritz, "The forces of justice have arrived." "Help," screamed the guineas. "Mercy!" and "Oh, woe!" "You cannot escape, spineless ones! Prepare to meet your end." Then I would pedal back and forth in front of the fence, sweeping their enemy lines with machine gun blasts from my imaginary weapon. "Agggggghh," screamed the guineas, just like the fleeing forces of evil in my comic books. "Mercy!" Once, Miss Kitchens came out on the porch and called to me. "What are you doing out there, young man?" "Nothing, ma'am." "Aren't you Agnes and Arthur Carden's grandson?" "No ma'am. I'm somebody else." "Are you bothering my guineas? "Oh, no, ma'am. I'm just admiring them." I pedaled away. One Halloween, somebody let Miss Kitchens' guineas out. It wasn't me. The next morning, they were on Painter Knob crying havoc at every squirrel and rabbit. A dozen were seen walking single-file down Ensley's Road, lamenting and weeping like Chicken Little all the way; three were seen roosting on the roof of the Coffee Shop. They were sighted in Dillsboro and East La Porte. Nobody could catch them, and then, just as suddenly as they appeared, they vanished. Maybe they intermarried with owls and buzzards, became "adjusted" and learned to soar with the hawks above Black Rock and the Pinnacle. Maybe some of them went home... stowed away on tankers, or found their way North to Detroit, Chicago and happier climes. I hope so. |
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