Grandpa Kyle

My grandfather was the best storyteller ever. I mean, he could spin a yarn.

One Thanksgiving we were at his place, a crowd of about 2 dozen, more than half of us kids, from toddlers to teens. As you can imagine, we were a handful, getting into this and that. But then all of a sudden...

(gobble gobble) "Did you hear that?!?" yelled Grandpa Kyle.

"Yeah, it's you making turkey noises, Grampa."

"Listen!" (gobble gobble gobble) "It's the magic turkey!", said grandpa as he lit his pipe.

"Huh, what are you talking about, Gramp?"

"Don't you know about the the magic turkey? He's the biggest turkey that ever lived. And if you want to have any turkey for dinner, you'd better find him. Now I thought I saw him run into the den not two minutes ago."

Guess where we all ran off to. Alas, no turkey in the den. We all go running back into the living room where Grampa held court from his easy chair.

"There's no turkey in the den."

"Well of course not, you just missed him. He ran into the kitchen. I bet he's hiding under the sink!" (gobble gobble)

Now we all knew that was Grandpa gobbling, but he still had us convinced that there was a turkey under the kitchen sink. Tromp tromp to the kitchen. No turkey. Back to the living room.

"Grampa, there's no turkey under the sink!"

"Are you sure? He's pretty hard to see. He's really fast & he's almost invisible. That's what makes him magic. But you're too late now. He ran up into the attic."

Bam bam bam up the steps. We looked in the attic, under every bed, behind the sewing machine, in all the closets. We even looked under the rug. No turkey. Kaboodle kabundle down the stairs.

"Grampa, he's not in the attic either!"

"Now I told you he's really fast. He just tore through here & headed for the basement."

Off we go again. We looked all through the basement. Every room. We looked in cupboards. We looked in the apple bushels. We looked behind the furnace. We checked the garage. We looked in Grampa's car. We thought we were rather thorough. But do you think we could find that turkey? No! Back upstairs, a little slower than before.

"Grampa, we can't find the magic turkey anywhere!!!" We were starting to get a little exasperated about this time.

"Did you look in the washing machine? He's pretty sneaky, you know."

Well, of course we hadn't looked in the washing machine, nor anywhere else that the magic turkey was hiding. As a matter of fact, we never did find him. We heard later that he got clean away one more time.

But we still had turkey for dinner, a rather large, rather ordinary turkey.

Sometimes I wonder whatever happened to that magic turkey. Who knows? Maybe this year, he'll be at your house!

Happy Thanksgiving from Kent!