Beaky, Dad’s childhood pet turkey, played such a huge part in my own childhood Thanksgiving memories that I was shocked to realize recently that Dad had never dedicated a book to him. There is a short remembrance in the only memoir Dad ever wrote in the prelude to Aunt Patricia’s (the Troll) recipes in Whatchagot Stew. And there are various references here and there, but nothing significant until we found an old blog Dad wrote back in November 2007. Apparently Dad’s annual tributes to Beaky were mainly limited to the family as we gathered around the table on Thanksgiving trying to enjoy the lovely turkey dinner Mom had prepared. That’s probably a good thing. No one could tell a story like Dad, and I’m here to attest that all of his four daughters have been traumatized about eating turkey ever since.
For a farm boy, Dad always had a weak stomach and he hated killing things. Yes, he was also a hunter, but that might have been part of the reason he was such a notoriously unlucky hunter. The McManus daughters were very happy he was so unlucky because if he ever actually killed something, we would be eating it for months on end, and not a scrap would be wasted. Frankly, some scraps deserve to be wasted. Sixty years later, I still shudder remembering Mom’s stuffed venison heart. I’m sure the combination of Beaky Thanksgiving stories and Mom’s stuffed venison heart is what drove one of my sisters to become a life-long vegetarian.
Dad’s queasiness about eating pet turkeys also extended to eggs. After all, he had raised the beloved Beaky from an egg. I spent my childhood eating breakfast behind a cereal box wall because I had the audacity to like over-easy eggs. Despite the fact that Dad could not see what I was eating behind my flimsy wall, he seldom sat at the breakfast table with us when we had eggs. He couldn’t stomach the sound of me eating them and perhaps slurping slightly for dramatic affect. The more teachable people in the family were trained to eat eggs the way he liked his eggs—scrambled HARD. It still makes me smile nostalgically when Peggy and I go out for breakfast and she orders her eggs scrambled HARD. They never are hard enough for her, so she rarely eats them, but at least she doesn’t make me sit behind cereal boxes. And I, for my part, try to keep my slurping to a minimum.
Peggy and I are reposting below Dad’s 2007 blog about Beaky this Thanksgiving season for you to enjoy and perhaps read to your children during their Thanksgiving dinner. Granted, the turkey cook will never forgive you and your little ones might shed a tear, but the important thing is that the legacy of Beaky will live on. Cheers to Beaky! Long gone, but never forgotten!
Our family generally ate simple foods, so something as fancy as Ambrosia Salad seemed out of place on our dinner table. Nonetheless, it was served every Thanksgiving and Christmas. Somewhere along the line, we started calling it Foo Foo Salad. I guess that was our way of acknowledging just how high class we thought it was.
McManus Quote of the Month(This quote will help you understand just HOW simply we ate and whywe thought Foo Foo Salad was such a fancy treat.)
“Smoked carp tastes just as good as smoked salmon when you ain't got no smoked salmon."
— Pat McManus
From the McManus Archives
Pat's BlogNovember, 2007
It’s Thanksgiving again and time I paid my annual tribute to Beaky. Beaky was my pet turkey the summer I was ten. There was at that time a comic book character, a turkey, by the name of Beaky, and I think that is where I got the name for my own pet turkey.
Beaky was the only surviving member of half a dozen turkeys we somehow hatched out that year. His brothers and sisters had each found one of the innumerable ways turkeys have to commit suicide - befriending coyotes, weasels, skunks and dogs, choking on small bugs, jumping off high places and forgetting to open their wings, that sort of thing. Benjamin Franklin once suggested that the turkey become our national bird, but he was referring to the wild turkey, a completely different animal from the tame turkey. My old friend, Charlie Elliot, famed as both author and hunter, referred to wild turkeys as “the ultimate game.” The domestic turkey, by contrast, is a dull fellow, who would not survive a day without human care and feeding.
I suspect Beaky was no different from other domestic turkeys - not to mention any names- but I took a liking to him. At age ten, I lived a lonely existence on our tiny farm, and human friends my age were few and far between. There was a teenager who lived across the creek from me and had sworn to kill me if he ever got his hands on me. Someone had once borrowed the canoe he had built during a mere thousand hours in high school wood shop. For some reason, I became his number one suspect. Still, it was nice to receive a bit of attention from someone.
Beaky truly liked me, however. He would follow me around like a dog and I would throw him sticks to retrieve and he would stand there and look at me, a quizzical expression on his face. Everybody needs a friend, and that summer I had Beaky. He was my only source of enjoyment, he and canoeing.
Then Thanksgiving Day arrived. My sister (the Troll), my mother and grandmother, my stepfather Hank and I were all seated around the dining room table, which was reserved for special occasions. In the middle of the table was a large golden-brown turkey. I had no affection for turkeys in general, and I would not be surprised to learn they were my favorite food at that time of my life. My plate was heaped with sweet-potatoes-and-marshmallows, mashed potatoes and gravy, ambrosia salad, Turkey dressing, and of course, slices of turkey.
The Troll smiled as she watched me devour my meal. Then she nonchalantly said, “Beaky tastes pretty good, doesn’t he?”
I cannot tell you the sense of horror that came over me. I shoved back from the table and glared at Hank and Mom. Never before had I realized that I lived in a family of cannibals! Whoever heard of eating a person’s pet! Mom and Hank looked embarrassed, as well they should have. I knew that the two of them had conspired in the crime. I fled the dining room and the house, retreating to one of the hideouts I had once shared with Beaky. There I reflected on this sad state of affairs. How could I ever come to grips with the fact that I lived in a family of cannibals, that Beaky would no longer be around to comfort me with his companionship, and that he did in fact taste pretty good. I returned to Thanksgiving dinner. Anyway, here’s to Beaky! May he never be forgotten!
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