Mike The Wonder Chicken
The below article about the above photographed chicken
appeared in THE DENVER POST (Thank you). It should give one pause to think:
How much of our brain do we use to go about OUR regular predictable
activities? What will happen when we use ALL of our brain?! (see web site above):
May 11 - FRUITA - While most communities
observe Colorado Heritage Week with events
dedicated to pioneers, the town of Fruita has
decided to celebrate with something that only the
Western Slope town can crow about.
Mike the Headless Chicken Day on Sunday will
honor a 1940s rooster who for 4 1/2 years strutted
around, fattened up on grain and preened for
hens - all without a head.
Mike lost his head in 1945 when a Fruita farmer, anticipating a chicken
dinner, lopped off the head of a young Wyandotte rooster. Instead of
croaking and getting sent to the cooking pot, Mike the rooster wobbled
away from the chopping block and resumed his temporarily interrupted
barnyard activities with the rest of the heads-on chickens.
His headless life garnered him spreads in Life and Time magazines and a
listing in the Guinness Book of Records. He had his own manager and
toured the country in sideshows with a two-headed calf. He was studied by
scientists, who determined an intact brain stem was keeping Mike going.
Mike's fame faded out after he finally died from choking on a corn kernel,
but now headless Mike is in for a revival of sorts.
Mike the Headless Chicken Day will feature a 5K Run Like a Headless
Chicken race, egg tosses, chicken jokes, a chicken lunch and chicken bingo,
in which numbers are chosen by where chicken droppings fall on a
numbered grid. There will also be music, microbrew competitions and
historic tours of the town.
"To celebrate our history in Fruita, we wanted to have something
light-hearted,'' said Sally Edginton, executive director of the Fruita Chamber
of Commerce. "We wanted to celebrate this little guy because he was very
determined to live. We like that.''
According to old accounts in the Fruita Times newspaper, Mike's
determination first showed itself Sept. 10, 1945, when farmer L.A. Olsen
tried to please his mother-in-law while he was slaughtering dinner. Her
favorite fried-chicken piece was the neck, so Olsen carefully placed his ax
to leave as much neck as possible on Mike's body.
Chickens have been known to flutter around for seconds or minutes after
being decapitated, but after a few shaky steps, Mike fluffed up his feathers
and went about his business in the barnyard with the other, heads on
chickens. He went through the motions of pecking for food, preening his
feathers and tucking what used to be his head under his wing when he slept.
He tried to crow, but only a gurgle came out.
When he was still alive the following morning, Olsen decided he might be
more valuable as an oddity than a dinner and started dropping grain and
water into his gullet opening with an eyedropper.
When Mike was still alive a week later, Olsen packed him up and took him
to Salt Lake City so incredulous University of Utah scientists could study
him.
From that time on, Olsen and a manager he hired were the ones running
around like chickens with their heads cut off. They took Mike and Mike's
head, which Olsen had preserved in alcohol, to Los Angeles, San Diego,
Atlantic City and New York City. They set up photo shoots with magazines
and newspapers and kibitzed with scientists across the country.
Olsen also dealt with predecessors of animal-rights activists, who blasted
him for leaving a chicken alive in such a state. They begged him to finish the
hatchet job on the Mike.
But Fruita old-timers remember that Mike grew and thrived and didn't seem
much bothered by being minus a head.
Gayle Meyer, who interviewed Olsen in the 1980s before he died, said he
described Mike as "a robust chicken - a fine specimen of a chicken except
for not having a head.''
Copyright 1999 The Denver Post.
You are visitor
Sponsored by
  
   
|
