Life in the 1940s - the Chicken Man

Life in the United States in the 1940s

by Bill Russo

The chicken man came, driving a noisy station wagon painted in black

with squawking birds strutting in a compartment sectioned off in back.

To the sidewalk quickly she went, where she made a colorful choice

“I’ll take the lavender one, next to the red”, she proclaimed in a loud voice

Into the truck he went and grabbed the hen from which came a squeal.

Grandma passed two bits to the quick handed bird man to seal the deal.

To the back porch she made her way and whirled it high above her head

Squeezing its neck until the clucking, squawking pile of feathers was dead.

Those attachments she did pluck quickly, almost before the fade of the last cluck

of the lavender hen, who had stopped egg producton, and then ran out of luck

The last stop on the line for the strutters, squawkers, and squealers who are not able

Is to be surrounded by sauce, pasta, bread and wine on Grandma’s Sunday dinner table  

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I am sorry if this post offends anyone.  But it was a different time.  We lived in the shadow
of a war in which 60 million people were killed.  Six million were exterminated in death camps.

It was common where I lived for people to get regular visits from the chicken man, as well as the ice man, the knife sharpener man, the milk man, and even the bakery man.