A few months ago, I stopped by the post office and heard a sound I hadn’t heard in forty years. It was like a google earth experience: pull way back, make a wide lateral swing, zoom back in. Is there a google time app yet? Anyway, the sound I heard was the chirping and scruffling that only comes from a big cardboard box of baby chicks. You might be thinking, do they really send baby chicks in the mail? Yes, yes they do.

My dad used to take us down to the brooder house when we got new chicks. He would show us how to carefully tip the boxes so the chicks could get out, and how to shuffle our feet so we didn’t step on one. We had the “automatic” feeders of the day: round metal cannisters that you filled from the top; the feed or water would gradually, as needed, fill up the narrow, low trough that went around the outside of the cannister. Gravity, or some such magic, I suppose.

My father explained to us that baby chickens were smart, at least when compared to domestic turkeys. With chickens, you could slide the babies out of their boxes, and they would find their way to the food and water. They would also know what to do when they found said food and water. Not so with the turkeys. With turkeys, you had to take them out of the box one at a time, and dip each one’s beak in the water and then in the food. If you didn’t do that, they would starve to death. When we were kids, “chicken” meant you were scared of your shadow, but “turkey” meant you were an idiot.

Sometimes, the chickens would provide us with golden eggs. This would happen when the inside of the egg was (for some reason) solid yolk. We had a machine for packing eggs that would help us divide them into size small, medium, large, and jumbo. Occasionally, however, there would be a really, really tiny egg, and I would try to save the shell to make a Christmas ornament. An egg is really a beautiful shape; add some paint and glitter and ribbon and you have an object of meditation.

And of course I know now that the chickens were not after me! When I brought feed, they were just excited about lunch. And never, ever, did I have nightmares about being chased by chickens with huge mouthfuls of razor-sharp teeth. Never once did I go to sleep lying on my back because when I turned on my side the sound of my heartbeat filled my ears like the footfalls of angry chickens. No, all that stuff was the geese.