Veterinarian Fred Baylor, believes it, too. "The base part of the brain, where your basic biological functions were regulated, were still intact," Baylor explains.
On Sept. 10, 1945, a man named Lloyd Olson, the great-grandfather of Troy Waters, chased Mike the chicken around the barnyard and decapitated him. But Mike continued to run around.
A resident, Thomas said, "He still tried to peck at the ground even though he didn't have a beak," Thomas continues. "It was like he really didn't realize he didn't have a head."
"How did they keep him alive? They fed him with an eyedropper. Just right down his neck," Thomas adds. "Very healthy other than not having a head."
Here was a chicken that not only ran around with its head cut off, it hired an agent and went on tour. Many sent contracts, but only one got Mike to scratch on the dotted line. It cost 25 cents to get a look at Mike, and all those quarters added up. Dirt farmer Lloyd Olson had the headless chicken that laid the golden egg.
But, as happens with all too many superstars, disaster struck. Tragically, Mike the chicken choked to death in an Arizona motel in 1947. The little fella was only two years old.
No one knows where Mike is buried, but all agree he lived an uncommonly good life, considering he was born a fryer.
---adapted from Bill Geist, CBS News
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Why am I writing about a headless chicken? Because that story reminds me reminds me of my early marriage in the sixties.
Determined to be the perfect wife, I cooked three meals a day, even though I had a full time teaching position at Acadiana High School. I was extremely confident about my culinary skills. After all, I won the Betty Crocker award for the state of Louisiana and placed first at state rally for Home Economics. Never mind that those contests were written exams.
And I observed Mom Wick, my maternal grandmother, as she negotiated her way through countless relatives on Sundays to produce seven course meals from scratch without using recipes. I never really thought about actually cooking because everyone else prepared meals for our large family: AMD's three domestics, Dad, Parrin, and countless aunts and cousins. There was really no more room in the kirchen.
My first foray into meal preparation was amazing. That meat loaf tasted delicious, as did my meatballs. I failed the spaghetti test. Throw onto a wall, not the ceiling to test for doneness.
Anything I cooked that required water was a disaster. I just didn't trust box directions. Rice was difficult as rice cookers were not yet invented. My rice was goopy and mushy. Grits ran like creeping water when I spooned it onto a plate.
But, to return to the chicken issue. I walked from our duplex apartment on East Vermillion Street in Lafayette to a tiny grocery store nearby to purchase a chicken to cook for dinner. Noticing that whole chicken was much less expensive than cut up pieces, I walked home with that atrocious looking fowl. Raw chicken is so unappetizing when it's covered with that bluish white, grainy, loose skin.
I plopped the bird on a large wooden cutting board. My cutting tools included a hatchet and a hammer.
I raised that hatchet and slammed it down with great force to slice the chicken horizontally. I used the hammer to pound the hatchet into the very bony pieces like the drumsticks.
Puzzled at the stringy appearance of the cut up chicken, I dumped it into hot oil sprinkled with my Cajun trinity: onions, garlic, and green pepper. Stirring the mixture to brown it made it look like spaghetti. I added a teaspoon of sugar to carmelize it and created a beautiful brown gravy.
I set our dinner table with my wedding china, crystal, and silver, and flowers from my neighbor's yard.
My rice was vastly improved as a friend of mine showed me how to measure water using the knuckle rule. Since my husband is a carnivore, detests any vegetable he can't spell, and requires a carb-filled menu, I served white beans, Niblets corn, and Le Seur tiny peas, along with salad and garlic bread.
I handed a cold Miller to him as he walked in from work. We talked about his day, then sat down to dinner. He bit into a piece of chicken, and surreptitiously raised the cloth napkin to his mouth. I waited for his approval.
He twisted his fork around on the plate as he tried to scatter the crushed up chicken bones. I took a bite of that massacred chicken and burst into tears.
I walked back to that grocery store the next day and told the elderly owner about my experience. He laughed, and asked where I was from.
I told him my grandfather owned a General merchandise store in Loreauville and that when I picked up chicken for our family dinner, my grandfather had already cut it into pieces to save the cook time. I told him how Mom Wick, my grandmother who lived next door to our family, chased chickens around her yard, grabbed one by the legs, held it upside down, the shoved that squawking bird down through a chute hung on the fence where she promply sliced off its head and neck. The first time I witnessed her decapitating a chicken, I vowed to eat fish and steak instead.
The nice store owner laughed at my stories. Allowing me to go behind the meat counter, he demonstrated how to cut a chicken properly using the proper tools. How logical, I thought.
I thanked him and thought how good tamales from that street cart down the street from our duplex sounded for tonight's meal.
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