Friday, November 1, 2013

THE CHICKEN STORY ~ An original story told to me by Ben Watts


My father-in-law, Ben Watts, was a quite and humble man.  He worked 50 years at the Stokley Van Camp plant in Newport, Tennessee.  He began working as a young boy hoeing various crops that Stokleys used to grow locally. Later he worked inside the plant and then for many years until his retirement, was the supervisor of the warehouse handling all the raw materials used in the canning operations.

Several years after his retirement, Becky and were visiting her folks in Newport.  It was a warm summer evening and after dinner Ben and I took a walk around their Clifton Heights neighborhood.  As we walked, Ben talked of different things, but the “Chicken Story” he shared with me that evening is one I’ll always remember. 

Ben told me that as a young man, he'd worked at the Stokley Van Camp plant in Newport.  He remembered that in those days, Stokleys had a large grassy fenced-in yard within the confines of the plant.  This grassed area was a place for men to take breaks, take a smoke, or eat lunch.

Stokleys also had a bunch of game hens and roosters that ran loose around the fenced-in grounds.  The chickens caught bugs they found around the yard as well as lunch scraps workers tossed to them.  They were pretty much tame with all the workers constantly around the area.

There was an elderly Black man who had worked for Stokleys many years and everybody knew him as “Old Bob.” Bob worked around the yard keeping it clean up as well as doing other odd jobs around the plant.  He was also the unofficial keeper of the game hens.  The chickens were so trusting of him that he could approach one easily, pet it or even pick it up. 

As was typical of that time in southern society, Old Bob was occasionally the butt of a racial jokes or racial slur from some of the white workers.  But things generally went along smoothly and without problems between the races. 

Despite the usual smooth relationships, one day during a lunch break, one of the work crew called “Big Amos” thought he’d have some fun at Old Bob’s expense.  Big Amos had somewhat of a bully personality and liked to be the center of attention.  On this day he waited until a good number of the work crew had gathered there in the yard eating their lunch and making small talk; then in a loud voice called Old Bob over to him and said, “Catch one of them thar hens and bring it over here.”  In the racially divided society of the 1930’s Old Bob knew it’d probably be best not to object to the request, so Bob obliged and easily caught one of the game hens.  He held it gently and walked over to Big Amos and the crew that had gathered around to see the fun.  Nigger,” big Amos said slowly, “I’ll tell you what I’m ah going to do.  I’m agoin to let you do whatever you want with that old hen, but whatever you do to it, I’m going to do it to you!”   Big Amos crossed his arms, leaned back with a smirk on his face to see what Old Bob would do.  Ben said that Amos was probably thinking that there ain’t much a fella could do with an old yard chicken excepting to wring its neck or throw it up in the air or some other fool thing.

As the crowd of workers eagerly waited for something to happen, Old Bob just looked down at the chicken he was holding, studied it for a minute; and proceeded to take the following action.  Bob took that old yard chicken turned it upside down, tucked its head back under his right armpit, grabbed its feet with his left hand and the tail feathers in his right hand, bent that old hen over and planted a big kiss right on that chicken’s hinny-hole.

Ben couldn’t help but laugh as he recalled his memories of that event, but continued with his story by saying, “I’ll tell you one thing, that crowd exploded with laughter as the smirk quickly faded from Big Amos’s face.  As you might guess, that was the end of the fun and you can be sure that Big Amos didn’t keep his promise to “do the same thing to Old Bob that he’d done to the chicken.” 

In the days and years that followed, Ben said that he didn’t recollect any other instances where any of the crew at Stokleys ever put Old Bob to the test again.  Following his lunch time victory over Big Amos, Old Bob was pretty much a man left alone, but respected as a quick thinking Black man around the Stokley Van Camp plant. 

When you think of all the possible things that could have happened when Big Amos challenged Old Bob that day, it could have been a bad scene.  But Old Bob’s quick thinking proved again the saying that a person’s “Actions speak louder than words.”  Without a single word, without any physical aggression, and with no harm to him self, Old Bob made his point and diffused a potentially explosive situation.   And to ramble just a bit further...... I think most would agree that it takes a man of courage to plant a kiss on the bottom part of a chicken.

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