TRACKING HAPPINESS: Chapter 23

This is CHAPTER 23 in our series offering gossip, novel backstory, and personal confessions about TRACKING HAPPINESS: A SOUTHERN CHICKEN ADVENTURE. We’re working our way through a novel here. If you’re just now discovering us, you can jump in now or go back to the first entry and catch up. If you jump in now, I can’t promise you it won’t be confusing, but it might be interesting too.

Ok. Last we left off: Lucinda was confronting her mother in the Gminsky’s kitchen about “unspoken” discord between them.  

Earlier, the story was flying along so fast I didn’t have time to mention that a Naked Neck is a real chicken. I have a photo in the Footnotes because you’ve got to see this chicken to believe it. Wikipedia calls its appearance “unusual.” That’s an understatement. The full name of this bird is the Transylvanian Naked Neck. Can you believe that? A chicken with an exposed neck named after the land of Dracula who, of course, bites on your exposed neck. The Naked Neck originated in Transylvania hundreds of years ago, which is a region of Romania in the Carpetheian mountain range. How did I run across the Naked Neck chicken? I did not keep research notes on this question. Just lucky I guess. I’ve put photos of ostrich and turkeys in the Footnotes, too, so you can see these other birds with naked necks. Of course, it looks perfectly normal on them, because we’re used to seeing it. Not on a chicken.

I can’t say a lot about this chapter because it gives away plot points. We’re coming to the end of the novel (only 3 chapters after this one) so plot lines are resolving fast and furious. I don’t know about you, but I’m the type of person who doesn’t want to know a thing about a book before I read it. I don’t even read the blurb on the book jacket before I buy a book. I open the book and read the first paragraph. If I like that, I read the full page. Then I buy it, or I don’t. I figure my desire for ignorance is unusual, as every book ever produced has a book jacket with a blurb. People WANT a preview of what’s going to happen. Still, I’m not giving away surprises at this late point in the book. You will just have to listen and see what happens. 

And, yes, this chapter includes Bible humor. I know, I know. Religion is not a safe comedic topic. But the joke involves Lucinda’s dad’s funeral, and funerals ARE safe comedic territory.  Everybody laughs at funerals, right? It’s not just my family, right? Right?

Okay. That’s enough preliminary information. Now go read Chapter 23 of TRACKING HAPPINESS: A SOUTHERN CHICKEN ADVENTURE.

Fun Chicken Fact: Baby chickens talk to their mothers WHILE STILL IN THE EGG. The mother’s been peeping and clucking at the eggs while she’s nesting and, at some point, the egg starts peeping and clucking back. Chickens are just amazing. 

Footnotes Section

Naked neck https://www.omlet.us/breeds/chickens/naked_neck

Naked Turkey neck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey_(bird)#/media/File:Wild_turkey_eastern_us.jpg

Naked Ostrich neck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_ostrich#/media/File:Struthio_camelus_-_Etosha_2014_(3).jpg 24