You may have read Editor Cal Bryant’s column earlier this week where his friend Bobby “Keys” Eure gave us the answer to that age-old question: Why did the chicken cross the road?

“Keys” actually gave some of the best answers I’d heard since the reason the Italian-Roman chicken crossed the road was so that no one would ‘Caesar’; or, that it was because there was a KFC on her side of the road; or, because it was ‘poultry in motion’; or, that the chicken actually did it twice, which would make it a: double-crosser.

I would say I digress, but I think you good folks have figured out that I’m there already.

Back to the question: a couple of days ago, I heard from a reader in California by the name of Kevin Dunlow and he said he would make a reply and that I could use his real name. Because of the name, I assumed he was a ‘local’ fellow from the immediate area. I was right…and wrong!

It turns out Dunlow is a native of the Roanoke-Chowan area now living in the Golden State and he said “Keys” didn’t quite ‘unlock’ this mystery as well as he (Dunlow) could, and he had a different answer to the query.

Well, believer in the right of free speech that I am, and wanting to see if this was like “to prove to the possum that it could be done”, I decided to give the man a shot, and here’s his answer:

“Dear Mr. Motley, We have always been Bertie/Hertford County. My ancestors are local Native American. My people are documented as land owners in Bertie County since the 1700s. My people are all still there. My Dad and Mom and all ancestors are Tri-County. My wife’s ancestors, both sides as well. My family members fought and are documented fighting in all the wars. All our blood is in the ground there. I’m loyal and faithful to my country. Most of all: to my state, above that to my community, above that to my family. Most of the DNA in Bertie County matches mine. Yes, Mr. Motley I’m a “local”.

I read your newspaper’s article on the statements on why the chicken crossed the road. None were correct. The chicken crossed the road fleeing across the border of N.C. because of the discrimination and persecution there. It seems the chicken was raised by ducks. It identified itself as a duck, it dressed like a duck, and it talked like a duck. It used the duck’s restroom. But the chickens said that since it was hatched a chicken it therefore needed to use the chicken’s restroom. The ducks said it wasn’t a duck so it couldn’t use the duck’s restroom either. The chicken also had cancer and was a licensed medical marijuana patient. The N.C. chickens in charge said he must go to the prison coop for using his natural doctor recommended medication. The chicken realized that N.C. was overrun with chicken poop and was therefore fleeing across the road to a state in this great country that did not discriminate against him, deprive him of his God-given rights to identify with the ducks; and to use natural, safe, affordable marijuana in accordance with his new state’s laws for his new coop. The chicken crossed the road obviously, for FREEDOM from the discrimination and persecution it received in N.C.”

I could have taken ‘EGG-ception’ to the not so subtle political references in his reasoning, or that the reply makes me want to tuck my hands beneath my armpits and flap those appendages while doing, yes, you guess it: the ‘Chicken Dance’.

Instead, I realize that we’re in a political cycle not so much where two wrongs make a right, as much as we should appreciate the ‘Bill of Rights’: our American right to our freedoms, including “of speech”.

Hmmm, something’s cooking, and it smells good … wonder if it’s chicken!?!

 

Gene Motley is a Staff Writer at Roanoke-Chowan Publications. He can be contacted at gene.motley@r-cnews.com or 252-332-7211.