[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 77 (Thursday, May 10, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1015]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       GRANDMOTHERS AND CHICKENS

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                              HON. TED POE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 10, 2007

  Mr. POE. Madam Speaker, my grandmothers were remarkable women. I 
enjoyed the time I spent with them up until they died late in years--
one at 88; the other at 99.
  They lived during times when there were few if any modern 
conveniences. No air conditioner. No microwaves. No electricity. They 
forged lives for their families out of sheer will and determination. My 
Grandmother Poe was of Scots-Irish decent. My mom's mother, Meme, was 
of German heritage. Both were wonderful cooks, and I always showed them 
utmost respect.
  Sundays were special. When we visited them we would go to Church, and 
then back to one of my grandmother's house for the big Sunday lunch 
that was all home cooking.
  The summer that I was 5 years old, I visited Grandmother Poe, and on 
one particular Saturday she was preparing for Sunday lunch. Fried 
chicken was the meal. I never made the connection between the chicken 
we ate on Sunday and the chickens that ran loose around my 
grandmother's house.
  I soon learned that connection and one of those chickens was the next 
day's meal. Grandma Poe told me on that Saturday afternoon that we 
needed a chicken for Sunday lunch. So I eagerly and happily followed 
her out to the yard and was unaware of what was about to happen. I saw 
her small, petite hands latch on to the neck of a hen, and with the 
slightest of movements she popped the head off that chicken. I was 
horrified. I had never seen anything so ghastly. She calmly waited for 
the chicken to stop ``running around with its head cut off,'' plucked 
the feathers off of it, and put it in a big 5-gallon bucket to be fried 
and eaten the next day. I don't think that I ate chicken on Sunday, but 
I learned respect and a little bit of fear of my Grandmother Poe that 
afternoon.
  About a year later, a similar situation occurred with Grandmother 
Meme, when I stayed with her.
  Sunday was to be another meal of fried chicken. So on Saturday, I was 
emotionally prepared in my youthful mind for the ``chicken hunt''--
ready to see the neck pop off of another unsuspecting chicken--just to 
be devoured by humans.
  But this time, my Meme did not go wring a chicken's neck. Instead, 
just as calm as my Grandmother Poe had been, she picked up her 22 
rifle, stepped out of the back porch, took aim at the moving, head-
jerking hen, and pulled the trigger. She shot that chicken in the head 
and it flopped over with no movement at all. One shot--one dead hen. I 
was stunned. She picked up the carcass and fried it, just as my other 
grandmother had done.
  I gained a lot of respect for my gun-totin' grandmother that 
Saturday.
  After those two incidents occurred early in my life, I was always 
careful on how I treated my grandmothers--careful never to anger either 
one of them--and remembering in a childlike way, the fate of those 
chickens. I admired my grandmothers and cherished all those special 
lessons they taught me for numerous years.
  This Mother's Day, we pay tribute to those wonderful, hard-but-soft 
ladies like the generation of my grandmothers.
  We praise and respect all of the American mothers this Sunday that 
have made us who we are and taught us about respect and honor of these 
remarkable women. And Madam Speaker, I still don't eat chicken. And 
that's just the way it is.

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