ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED TUESDAY, NOV. 24, 2015, IN THE CHESTERTON TRIBUNE
Known to be delicious with stuffing, gravy, and cranberry sauce, turkeys are known not at all for their smarts, their problem-solving skills, or their decisiveness.
A case in point: At 7:10 a.m. today, on Ind. 149 immediately south of U.S. Highway 6, a rafter of Wild Turkeys—yes, a rafter, look it up—stopped traffic dead for half an hour because the guardrail on the west side of the road proved an insuperable obstacle.
Comes to the rescue Luke Waters, a Chesterton native on his way home from the mill, who like everyone else was forced by the 30 or so turkeys, just standing there in the middle of the road, just staring, flummoxed by the guard rail and milling around like passive-aggressive zombies, to slam on the brakes.
“There were 30 full-grown turkeys,” Waters told the Chesterton Tribune. “They were huge. Full grown. Ready to be eaten.”
Just not ready to be moved.
Commitment issues?
“Yeah, they weren’t willing to commit.”
Waters is a big guy, 6’ 6’’ and 250. This other dude’s no slouch either, Waters said. And together they waded into the rafter, yelling, arm-waving, herding.
To no avail.
“We’re the worst herders ever. None of them were going in the same direction. Even if we got them to the guardrail, they just stood there. No one wanted to be the first one over.”
Meanwhile, traffic’s really backed up. And not just the south- and northbound lanes of Ind. 149. By this time the jam had rippled its way north into the intersection of Ind. 149 and U.S. 6 and was beginning to spread east and west. Gridlock.
It didn’t take long, naturally, for a couple of Porter County Sheriff’s Police deputies to respond. “They see us in the road acting like lunatics,” Waters said. “Then they see the turkeys. And they start laughing. They get out their phones and take a few pictures.”
Then the deputies got back into their squads, hit the lights and sirens, and inched their way into the rafter, hoping the sheer cacophony of it would scare the birds over the guardrail.
Turns out, turkeys are too stupid to be scared.
“It didn’t work,” Waters said. “Some hopped over. But most just sort of wandered off in a different direction.”
Finally, Waters cracked the turkey code.
He gobbled.
Gobbled just like a big old tom in a barnyard full of hens. And flapped his arms. The other guy started gobbling too. Gobbling and flapping. Flapping and gobbling. And together the two led the rafter to freedom, to the Canaan just beyond the guardrail.
Waters said he’s going to think about those turkeys on Thanksgiving. Certainly they’ve got something to be thankful for. “But man, they’re dumb animals. Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.”
