Pam Webb

Philosophical Chickens

Okay, Kauai is still much on my mind. Did I mention how this tropical paradise is practically overrun with feral chickens? This was not mentioned in the guide books.

While I didn’t see this many chickens at one time, they are truly everywhere: four star resorts, the airport, restaurants, shopping centers. And people don’t pay them too much attention. The locals tolerate them. The tourists take photos of them. I guess in the same way that our locals tolerate the moose that often wander down the street. Then again moose don’t jump up on the table to snatch unattended fries. No, instead they decimate tulips. And even the locals take photos of the moose.

I usually discuss cows. Today the topic is chickens due to my spring cleaning in July.

In summer I attempt to tidy up my office in my free and unfettered time now that school is out. I came across this handout that is related to allusions. I had intended to introduce this witty combination of chickens and allusions to one of my AP Literature classes. Somehow it didn’t happen. It’s too good to toss so I share it with you. It means so much more to me now that I have encountered feral chickens. However, I doubt they would be into Nietzsche. Douglas Adams, maybe. What is your favorite reference? I grin every time I read Groucho’s comment. This is found all over the place on the Internet in different version, so I am not sure who to credit. Enjoy!

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Hamlet: Because ’tis better to suffer in the mind the slings and arrows of outrageous road maintenance than to take arms against a sea of oncoming vehicles.

Timothy Leary: Because that’s the only kind of trip the Establishment would let it take.

Douglas Adams: 42

Nietzsche: Because if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road gazes across you.

Dorothy Parker: Travel, trouble, music, art / a kiss, a frock, a rhyme / The chicken never said they fed its heart / But still they pass its time.

T.S. Eliot: It’s not that they cross, but that they cross like chickens.

Darth Vader: Because it could not resist the power of the Dark Side.

Darwin: It was the logical step after coming down from the trees.

Emily Dickinson: Because it could not stop for death.

Robert Frost: To cross the road less traveled by.

Ernest Hemingway: To die. In the rain.

Mark Twain: The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated.

Martin Luther King: It had a dream.

Stan Laurel: I’m sorry, Ollie. It escaped when I opened the run.

Groucho Marx: Chicken? What’s all this talk about chicken? Why, I had an uncle who thought he was a chicken. My aunt almost divorced him, but we needed the eggs.