Uncle Hoyt and the Road Side Chicken: Lessons Learned Along the Way

    Our son and daughter-in-law recently began raising hens for the eggs they could produce. The choice was partially a fulfillment of their mutual childhood dream to live on a farm and partially a response to the current pandemic and the fears of lack that often accompany such times. My husband and I visited the new “chicken-compound” just a day or two ago. The coop our children had built was impressive, but PINK with tiny curtains in the teeny chicken-sized windows! Pink was not exactly the color we had envisioned as it is not the usual color of choice for chicken architecture. However, the shock brought on by the color quickly gave way to an overwhelming flood of memories when I smelled the chicken feed!  It was a smell that transported me through time to a little roadside attraction in South Florida where I swear, there was a piano-playing chicken!

    But, I’ve gotten way ahead of myself, because this story actually started six months before I was born when my family moved to a small town in South Alabama. Their new little home was right next door to Hoyt and Nell Bonds and their daughters, Judy and Susan. My father was an only child with no family nearby and my mom, a transplant from Kansas. Hearing those facts was all it took for the Bonds to OFFICIALLY adopt my family into their own! When I came along, they included me in the deal.

    How I loved the Bonds! They trained me early to call them “Aunt Nell and Uncle Hoyt”. I spent as much time next door with them as I did at home with my own family. I said my first words in their home, took my first steps there, went to Easter Sunday services in a frilly yellow dress, shoes, hat and little handbag Aunt Nell bought for me. For close to 60 years, every celebration, every heartbreak, the daily ups and downs that come with living—we weathered it all together. Side by side, friends for life, from day one on, they never broke the promise of family they made to us.

    My father’s career demanded that he be away from home…a lot! I sometimes would not see him for days, even weeks at a time. And so it was that his best friend took special care to spend time with me, teach me, play with me, and be a second father figure to me. He included me and I grew up pretty sure that I belonged there as much as their own two girls. They certainly told me that I did…CONSTANTLY!  But I really think it was the chicken that settled, once and for all, any doubt I may have had on that front!

    Each year, our families traveled together to beaches, ballgames, or the mountains.  Our little travel trailers in tow, we formed a happy caravan wherever we went. One favorite destination back in the early 1960’s was South Florida. It was on a return trip from Florida that I first encountered the chicken. Really, my brother Mark found him first. We were at the end of a rest stop at a tourist trap on a back woods highway – “Reptile World.”

    “Hey Cindy, come over here, look at this guy, will ya’?!” I was pretty sure my brother hung the moon, so I usually did what he asked. I wandered over to see the cutest little chicken in a cage. There with him was a tiny toy piano with a lamp atop it, and on the wall was a framed photo of him playing his piano. Mark pulled out a coin, rattled it in the coin slot as if he was going to put it in, then he waited. When the chicken heard the coin rattle, he got up, went to his piano, turned on the lamp with his beak, then began pecking out a melody-less tune. Song completed, he turned to the feed dispenser beside the coin drop. Normally when a coin was inserted, feed would drop into the bowl. However, to my horror my brother withdrew his coin and left the chicken with no reward for his tune! I was incensed!  I demanded he pay the chicken for his hard work. When that did not work, I pleaded! But nothing moved my big brother and he walked away with his money in his pocket. I was far too young to have money of my own, so as the adults tried to corral us back into the cars to continue our trip, I tearfully approached them all with my request. “I need some money to pay a chicken for a song he played. Mark won’t pay him and we owe for the song!!” Now I can tell you in retrospect, their reticence to hand over money to a little girl offering no more than this rather outlandish explanation as to her need for money, is no longer a mystery to me. However, at the time, I could not understand and I left there heartbroken.  How anyone could take advantage of another living creature made no sense to me!   So, just before I climbed into the car, I made the promise that I would save up my money and come back.

    The next spring as we made our way down the backroads to South Florida, I kept a watchful eye for “Reptile World” because I could not remember exactly where it was. When I finally saw it’s lights, darkness was falling. We were late for our reservation and to further complicate issues, it was on the opposite side of a divided highway with no way to cross the median to get to it. None of that seemed to matter anyway, because we raced by the place going mighty “doggonned” fast. I was riding with the Bonds and as I watched the lights fade, I began crying. Uncle Hoyt heard me, and turned to ask what was the matter.

 “I wanted to stop, Uncle Hoyt, back there at Reptile World. I NEEDED to stop!”

 “It’s on the other side of the highway, Sweetie, and we are pulling these travel trailers. It would be almost impossible to turn around in this deep median.”

    “Oh I know, Uncle Hoyt…” Now I’d learned last year that telling a bunch of adults I wanted to pay a chicken for playing a song on the piano was not a story that was going to get me very far. So I measured my next words carefully.  “… I owe somebody there. They did something for me last year, but I couldn’t pay. I promised I’d come back. I PROMISED!  And I’ve saved all year to pay them back, Uncle Hoyt! See?” I extended my chubby little hand to reveal the change I’d brought, “I have it right here and I really need to pay this back!”

    My tears flowed as I tried to explain and Uncle Hoyt studied me carefully for a long while. Finally he said, “I would not do this for anyone else.” Then I heard him contact my father over the two way radio they used to communicate on our trips. “Ralph,” he said, “We’re going to turn around in the median and go back to that little place we just passed.” My father responded, “WHAT??!!” “Reptile World,” explained Uncle Hoyt, “we need to go back. We’ll meet you there.”

 The turn around in the median was even more treacherous than Uncle Hoyt had described. And it took time. All the while I was praying, “Oh please God, please let that chicken still be there ‘cause if he’s not, I’m going to be in SO MUCH TROUBLE! Please, oh please…OH PUL-LEEEEEZE…” 

   I was in mid-prayer when we finally pulled into the parking lot. I held my breath until the front door came clearly into view. To my great relief, there sat the cage with the chicken and his piano!

    I bolted from the car and ran as fast as my little girl legs would carry me! As I reached the cage I whispered excitedly to the chicken, “I’m back, just like I promised! I came back! And now, I have money to pay you!”   I pushed coin after coin into the slot, more and more corn and feed emptied into the cage and as it did, the chicken played song after song on the piano! I was thrilled! I’m pretty sure the chicken was happy with the outcome as well.

    Uncle Hoyt stood by, quietly watching. Finally as I turned to leave he asked, “Everything okay now?”  “Oh yes, Uncle Hoyt, everything is fine! I kept my promise!” He hugged me, gave me that smile I loved so dearly and said, “Then I’m glad we turned around. We should always keep our promises—even the ones we make to chickens.”

    Uncle Hoyt has long since passed on, as has Aunt Nell, my parents, and I’m almost certain, that chicken. The backroads we traveled have been replaced by much higher speed interstate highways, and “Reptile World” exists only in my memory. I have 7 grandchildren of my own and one thing I always practice with them is another lesson I learned: the more “outlandish” the statement one of those little people makes to me, the more closely I know I must listen. Because, like Uncle Hoyt taught me that day, all God’s creatures deserve to be loved, appreciated, rewarded for the good they do, and really heard from the heart...ALL OF THEM …right down to the youngest child, or the most talented piano-playing chickens (even those who live in bright pink houses!)

Cindy Rose Coleman