Charlie

The house we lived in was originally a stable and moved in from the farm and converted to a house. It was on a lot next to the owners, Charlie and Amelia Blaser. Charlie was retired but considered himself a carpenter. At best he was a rough carpenter and while the house was comfortable enough, it had some quaint features. One was the opening at the top of the stairs leading to the bedrooms. Charlie had figured badly and when he got the stairs finished, there was only about four feet left for a door. The re-make was not pretty to see.

We started out paying $50 month rent but after a couple months, Charlie told us he thought $45 was probably more fair. A month later, however, he felt a compromise of $47.50 would be best.

Our relationship with Charlie and Amelia was unique. She was very quiet and about as nice a woman as one would want to find. Charlie was 77 years old and a nice guy too, but eccentric, to say the least.

Of good German stock, Charlie liked his beer and spent most of the afternoons at one of the local taverns. His friends occasionally would lace his beer with a shot of whiskey and he would find his way home rather uncertainly. That created some problems. There were several occasions when we would discover Charlie seated on the sidewalk in front of our house playing with our 18 month old son, Sam. It was quite a sight, this old man thoroughly enjoying himself and the youngster similarly engaged. Our fear was that Charlie’s condition on occasion might put Sam in harm’s way, but we kept an eye out and nothing untoward ever happened.

One day the local business organization sponsored a “Turkey Days” promotion to generate some traffic in the stores. Each place of business placed a live turkey in a cage in front of their store. Customers were to guess the weight and the closest won the turkey at that store. The noise produced by those turkeys was something else but at the day’s end, the promotion was considered successful. Winners were required to take their turkey home and leave the cage because the hatchery where they came from had to have them back for other uses right away.

As it happened, Amelia Blaser won the turkey at the newspaper office but she had no way of getting it home without Charlie.

“I don’t know where he is right now,” Mrs. Blaser said.

I knew I could find him in one of the two or three taverns in town so I told her I’d find him and get the turkey home for her. I did find him and he had been enjoying one of those afternoons where his buddies enhanced his enjoyment with additional spirits in his beer.

After convincing him we didn’t have time for me to have a beer with him, Charlie agreed to get his car, load the turkey and take it home. Since the cage had to be returned immediately, we had to chop the turkey’s head off so Amelia could clean it.

Even though Charlie was none too steady, I had had little experience in wielding an ax so I agreed to hold the turkey over the chopping block while Charlie took a whack at the bird. That was a mistake. A big mistake!

Charlie took a mighty swing and just nicked the bird in the neck. I had one hand around the legs and my other arm trying to contain the wings. The blow that Charlie struck only wounded the turkey but it had the strength to spread its wings and try to get out of the situation. My hold on the wings was none too secure and up they went while I was hanging on to the feet for dear life. The bird pulled me off the ground for a couple feet but my weight eventually brought us both back down to earth. I managed to grab the bleeding turkey’s neck and wring its head off. While that may be a gruesome vision, it was not an uncommon method of butchering chickens or turkeys in those days.

As an aside, that turkey promotion was deemed illegal by the state attorney general. He called our local county attorney and informed him the promotion constituted gambling in that it contained all three elements of the offense - prize, chance and consideration. The prize, of course, was the turkey and even though we considered guessing the weight a skill, that was deemed the chance. Although we did not charge customers for the guess they made, the state said just their making the effort to come to the store was consideration (payment).

The county attorney conveniently delayed notification until the promotion was over. No charges were involved. He was simply to have halted the affair. I called the state attorney general’s office to complain that enforcement of such gambling laws would stifle local commerce.

The answer I was given was that they normally did not try to enforce chamber of commerce type events but that they had received a complaint and were obliged to follow up. Off the record, I was told one certain individual was scanning weekly newspapers and complaining against such promotions. His intent was to get towns so incensed they would get the law changed. That did happen several years later.