05-03-2006, 04:28 AM
The name came from some stoned ramblings between my high school girlfriend and I. She had mentioned that whenever she heard The Band's "The Weight," the way that the line "Now wait a minute, Chester" was sung, it sounded to her like a Downs Syndrome person would say the name Chester. She pronounced it "Chestah" to demonstrate and I thought it was a bit of a stretch. While I certainly didn't hear it that way and couldn't even after the fact, it became a running joke in future stoned rambling between us. When one of us would say something completely unintelligible or clumsily trip or bump into something, we'd blame the sudden faux pas on Crazy Chester or at least, our own embodiment of him. Yeah, I don't know... but it was hysterical at the time.
It was late in my junior year when she got me my job at the day care center she worked at which was situated across from our high school. It was her reference and the fact that they could hire a guy to do the occasional grunt work that got me the job. While for the most part I served as a teacher's assistant, supervised my kids (aged 4-6) at play and during projects, walked them to the bathrooms, and swam with them during pool days in the summer, I would also be tasked with lugging boxes of supplies and decorations and once a year remulching the entire playground by myself. The bitch work was rare and the perks of the job was a laid back atmosphere and a ratio of 60 percent teen to twenty-something attractive teachers/assistants to 40 percent old biddy teachers. It was a fantastic job. Most of my kids were great and it shocks me to think that they are all now eight to nine years older and no longer the adorable scamps they were when I worked there so long ago. I tried to be a positive and happy influence in their lives as the rich community the school was situated in bred a lot of broken homes and bitter divorces that had an obvious influence on the kids. One of my favorite kids, Tommy, had a running tally on the number of mommy's boyfriends "since Daddy split." His words, co-opted from his Mom no doubt.
Once a year, I would lug out the incubator out of storage and the school would order "a mixed bag" of eggs from one of the local farms. We would load it up with chicken, duck, and quail eggs and upon incubation and some cuddly time for the kids with the newly hatched chicks, the school would call the farm for them to come pick up the mixed litter.
For whatever reason one particular year, the large bundle of eggs only produced one successfly hatched egg, a small chick which each kid decided to give a different name. Their arguments as to what the chick would be called lasted for the duration of the few weeks we had the chick. My girlfriend would occasionaly come upstairs from her room downstairs with her kids (aged 3 to 4) to coo over the chick and cuddle with it. While the kids were never allowed to pick it up and only pet it, the chick got so used to human hands that it would immediately doze off in our cupped hands.
"So what do you call it?" she asked me one day.
"Chester, of course. Please don't tell the kids. I don't want to hear it."
"Awwwwww, that's sweet." Then we went back to her place after work and made out.
Seeing the potential boon of my little chick magnet (pun intended), I decided to take Chester home with me after its time at the school was over. The school told the farm that none of the eggs had hatched that year and the farm understood. Whether it was the kids opening the lid too much while we weren't looking or just a problem with the shipment we'll never know, but the farm didn't care. No money ever changed hands with the school and the farm over the yearly arrangement and it was simply a matter of me telling my dingbat boss that I was taking Chester home with me for her to say ok.
I had a plastic storage container with strewn litter on the bottom, food and water dishes, and a heat lamp set up atop. My girlfriend spent more time at my place cooing at the adorable chick and making out with me afterward. I'm a genius!
Chester would excitedly peep whenever I got home and I would pick him up and allow it to rest on my chest under my cupped hands to nap while I watched TV. I was really getting attached to the little bugger. As the weeks went by, Chester continued to increase in size and sprout some small feathers in place of its yellow soft down coat. It was as the feathers continued to sprout and a distinct crest started to form at the top of its head that I realized that Chester was no mere chicken He was a motherfucking rooster!
Still, Chester seemed pretty domesticated and made for an interesting pet. As the months passed, I made a small coop outside for him as he was getting simply too large to keep in the plastic storage bin indoors. He kept getting larger as the weeks went by, but his feathers and coloration were very unique and simply gorgeous. He was mostly brown, but his wings and tail feathers had that peculiar coloration common on cars nowadays that shifted from green to blue depending on how the sun hit him and what angle you were looking at him from.
And that motherfucker could crow! Common knowledge is that a rooster will crow every morning at dawn and while that is true, they also crow intermittently all day long. He ruled the backyard and would occasionally climb the steps we built up to his coop to nap during the day or retire at the end of the night. I'd pick up feed from the literal farmer's market down the road from the daycare center and over the months, Chester lived a life of luxury in my backyard growing fat and happy and occasionally terrorizing my dogs when they had to go out back to pee as I giggled.
While my father entertained the thoughts of finding some hens and expanding the coop, after some time it just got to be to much and he decided he wanted his backyard back. Since Chester could no longer be coddled indoors, he forgot the touch of human hands and began not only terrorizing the family dogs, but the rest of the family as well when they wanted to go out back. I believe that since Chester didn't have any hens to boss around, he began to impose his will on any lifeform that crossed his path. "Get offa my land!" he seemed to shout as he flapped his wings and ran after people and animal alike in the backyard. To me, there was a certain amount of respect and formality from Chester as I was the one that raised him and fed him daily.
With a certain amount of reluctance, I relented when my father suggested we hand over Chester to a family friend that wanted to get some chickens. I don't think my father ever explained to him how badass Chester was and it was only a few weeks after that he called my father and told him he gave up on finding some hens and decided to... "get rid of Chester." My immediate thought of Chester roasting over a spit was not what he had in mind and I was glad for it. As wild of a bird as he inevitably turned out to be, he was still my kids' chick and I'd hate to know that's how he ended up.
As a trucker travelling the highways of the our great nation, my father's friend passed hundreds of farms along his routes. He took his pickup truck one day, loaded Chester up in back in a small crate, and headed toward a farm he knew of in Pennsylvania where he had seen some chickens congregating at the furthest end of the farm away from the highway. He pulled to the shoulder of the highway, grabbed the crate out of the back and pulled Chester out of the crate. He walked toward the fence bordering the highway, lifted Chester above his head, and tossed him over the fence, hoping he'd see the fine honeys across the way and make a mad dash for a fine piece of tail. Unfortunatly, Chester didn't quite understand. He turned around in the direction of the man, hovered up to the top of the fence, and made what the man described as a confused cluck.
"Ohhh.... fuck this!" he thought and hopped into his truck. "Figure it out."
He started to ease back onto the highway but didn't accelerate too much as he planned to pull off at the exit up ahead and head to the convenience store for a coffee and to make a u-turn back onto the highway to head home. When he looked into the rear view mirror, he saw Chester hop off the fence and start to hop and hover after the truck down the shoulder of the highway, but he kept going. (My jaw dropped and I was extremely horrified at this point in the story envisioning the inevitable squishing of my pet rooster beneath the wheels of a set of Goodyears.)
He hit the exit and pulled into the parking lot of convenience store and headed inside for his coffee and smokes. When he exitted, he was dismayed to find that Chester had found him and was now perched and crowing on the bed of the pickup. He gave him a little shove and Chester hovered to the grass on the side of the store and the man quickly pulled out and took off speeding home.
Days later, he stopped at the same convenience store in his work tractor trailer both for a coffee and out of curiosity and busted out laughing when he saw that Chester had made himself at home in the convenience store parking lot feeding off the scraps that people were throwing him on their way in and out. Further visits weeks later proved that he was still there living the high life and growing consistently fatter, single wingedly increasing business for that particular store as many people came to see Crazy Chester (unnamed to them of course) at this random Pennsylvania convenience store.
I'm sad to report that store employees eventually informed my father's friend that an Amish family had rode by one day, happened upon my monster rooster, and snatched him away. I can only hope that's he's happy now, wherever he may be.
That is the story of Crazy Chester, my pet rooster.
It was late in my junior year when she got me my job at the day care center she worked at which was situated across from our high school. It was her reference and the fact that they could hire a guy to do the occasional grunt work that got me the job. While for the most part I served as a teacher's assistant, supervised my kids (aged 4-6) at play and during projects, walked them to the bathrooms, and swam with them during pool days in the summer, I would also be tasked with lugging boxes of supplies and decorations and once a year remulching the entire playground by myself. The bitch work was rare and the perks of the job was a laid back atmosphere and a ratio of 60 percent teen to twenty-something attractive teachers/assistants to 40 percent old biddy teachers. It was a fantastic job. Most of my kids were great and it shocks me to think that they are all now eight to nine years older and no longer the adorable scamps they were when I worked there so long ago. I tried to be a positive and happy influence in their lives as the rich community the school was situated in bred a lot of broken homes and bitter divorces that had an obvious influence on the kids. One of my favorite kids, Tommy, had a running tally on the number of mommy's boyfriends "since Daddy split." His words, co-opted from his Mom no doubt.
Once a year, I would lug out the incubator out of storage and the school would order "a mixed bag" of eggs from one of the local farms. We would load it up with chicken, duck, and quail eggs and upon incubation and some cuddly time for the kids with the newly hatched chicks, the school would call the farm for them to come pick up the mixed litter.
For whatever reason one particular year, the large bundle of eggs only produced one successfly hatched egg, a small chick which each kid decided to give a different name. Their arguments as to what the chick would be called lasted for the duration of the few weeks we had the chick. My girlfriend would occasionaly come upstairs from her room downstairs with her kids (aged 3 to 4) to coo over the chick and cuddle with it. While the kids were never allowed to pick it up and only pet it, the chick got so used to human hands that it would immediately doze off in our cupped hands.
"So what do you call it?" she asked me one day.
"Chester, of course. Please don't tell the kids. I don't want to hear it."
"Awwwwww, that's sweet." Then we went back to her place after work and made out.
Seeing the potential boon of my little chick magnet (pun intended), I decided to take Chester home with me after its time at the school was over. The school told the farm that none of the eggs had hatched that year and the farm understood. Whether it was the kids opening the lid too much while we weren't looking or just a problem with the shipment we'll never know, but the farm didn't care. No money ever changed hands with the school and the farm over the yearly arrangement and it was simply a matter of me telling my dingbat boss that I was taking Chester home with me for her to say ok.
I had a plastic storage container with strewn litter on the bottom, food and water dishes, and a heat lamp set up atop. My girlfriend spent more time at my place cooing at the adorable chick and making out with me afterward. I'm a genius!
Chester would excitedly peep whenever I got home and I would pick him up and allow it to rest on my chest under my cupped hands to nap while I watched TV. I was really getting attached to the little bugger. As the weeks went by, Chester continued to increase in size and sprout some small feathers in place of its yellow soft down coat. It was as the feathers continued to sprout and a distinct crest started to form at the top of its head that I realized that Chester was no mere chicken He was a motherfucking rooster!
Still, Chester seemed pretty domesticated and made for an interesting pet. As the months passed, I made a small coop outside for him as he was getting simply too large to keep in the plastic storage bin indoors. He kept getting larger as the weeks went by, but his feathers and coloration were very unique and simply gorgeous. He was mostly brown, but his wings and tail feathers had that peculiar coloration common on cars nowadays that shifted from green to blue depending on how the sun hit him and what angle you were looking at him from.
And that motherfucker could crow! Common knowledge is that a rooster will crow every morning at dawn and while that is true, they also crow intermittently all day long. He ruled the backyard and would occasionally climb the steps we built up to his coop to nap during the day or retire at the end of the night. I'd pick up feed from the literal farmer's market down the road from the daycare center and over the months, Chester lived a life of luxury in my backyard growing fat and happy and occasionally terrorizing my dogs when they had to go out back to pee as I giggled.
While my father entertained the thoughts of finding some hens and expanding the coop, after some time it just got to be to much and he decided he wanted his backyard back. Since Chester could no longer be coddled indoors, he forgot the touch of human hands and began not only terrorizing the family dogs, but the rest of the family as well when they wanted to go out back. I believe that since Chester didn't have any hens to boss around, he began to impose his will on any lifeform that crossed his path. "Get offa my land!" he seemed to shout as he flapped his wings and ran after people and animal alike in the backyard. To me, there was a certain amount of respect and formality from Chester as I was the one that raised him and fed him daily.
With a certain amount of reluctance, I relented when my father suggested we hand over Chester to a family friend that wanted to get some chickens. I don't think my father ever explained to him how badass Chester was and it was only a few weeks after that he called my father and told him he gave up on finding some hens and decided to... "get rid of Chester." My immediate thought of Chester roasting over a spit was not what he had in mind and I was glad for it. As wild of a bird as he inevitably turned out to be, he was still my kids' chick and I'd hate to know that's how he ended up.
As a trucker travelling the highways of the our great nation, my father's friend passed hundreds of farms along his routes. He took his pickup truck one day, loaded Chester up in back in a small crate, and headed toward a farm he knew of in Pennsylvania where he had seen some chickens congregating at the furthest end of the farm away from the highway. He pulled to the shoulder of the highway, grabbed the crate out of the back and pulled Chester out of the crate. He walked toward the fence bordering the highway, lifted Chester above his head, and tossed him over the fence, hoping he'd see the fine honeys across the way and make a mad dash for a fine piece of tail. Unfortunatly, Chester didn't quite understand. He turned around in the direction of the man, hovered up to the top of the fence, and made what the man described as a confused cluck.
"Ohhh.... fuck this!" he thought and hopped into his truck. "Figure it out."
He started to ease back onto the highway but didn't accelerate too much as he planned to pull off at the exit up ahead and head to the convenience store for a coffee and to make a u-turn back onto the highway to head home. When he looked into the rear view mirror, he saw Chester hop off the fence and start to hop and hover after the truck down the shoulder of the highway, but he kept going. (My jaw dropped and I was extremely horrified at this point in the story envisioning the inevitable squishing of my pet rooster beneath the wheels of a set of Goodyears.)
He hit the exit and pulled into the parking lot of convenience store and headed inside for his coffee and smokes. When he exitted, he was dismayed to find that Chester had found him and was now perched and crowing on the bed of the pickup. He gave him a little shove and Chester hovered to the grass on the side of the store and the man quickly pulled out and took off speeding home.
Days later, he stopped at the same convenience store in his work tractor trailer both for a coffee and out of curiosity and busted out laughing when he saw that Chester had made himself at home in the convenience store parking lot feeding off the scraps that people were throwing him on their way in and out. Further visits weeks later proved that he was still there living the high life and growing consistently fatter, single wingedly increasing business for that particular store as many people came to see Crazy Chester (unnamed to them of course) at this random Pennsylvania convenience store.
I'm sad to report that store employees eventually informed my father's friend that an Amish family had rode by one day, happened upon my monster rooster, and snatched him away. I can only hope that's he's happy now, wherever he may be.
That is the story of Crazy Chester, my pet rooster.