Our local farm store manager meant well, but he overestimated a turkey’s aerial abilities. By James Wood, Smithville, Tennessee

The most memorable day of 1950—as well as any other year I can think of –in the little town of Dunkirk, Indiana, arrived just before Thanksgiving.

Mr. LeFevre, manager of the Clover Farm Store, decided to give away some turkeys. But he wanted to do something different that year instead of the usual raffle. So he ran an ad in the Dunkirk News: The Saturday before Thanksgiving at 2 p.m., he would throw live turkeys off the roof of the store.

I walked downtown about half an hour before the specified time so I wouldn’t miss a second of this exciting event. A huge crowd (for Dunkirk) had already assembled, eagerly awaiting the big turkey giveaway. Everybody was talking at once and making quite a din when Mr. LeFevre suddenly appeared up on the roof of the building.

The crowd gave a big cheer as he stepped to the edge of the roof. He’d lined up six large wooden crates behind him, and he pointed to them as he made a short speech that no one could hear because he was too high up off the ground. Everyone applauded anyhow when he stopped talking and reached into one of the boxes.

The look of gleeful anticipation on the people’s faces quickly turned to panic when the live turkeys, their wings outstretched and feet spread out in front of them like eagle talons began to plummet to the ground like crazed dive-bombers.

Mr. LeFevre was up there pitching them off the roof one after the other, and he must not have noticed that people down below were screaming and shoving to get out of the way of the terrified birds.

I did see Chester Schlegle manage to catch one, and everybody was glad for him, as times had been tough for his family, and a nice fat turkey would definitely brighten up their Thanksgiving dinner.

I’m not sure where the rest of the dive-bomb birds ended up. Looking back, I hope a kindly local farmer adopted them and took them back to his farm where they lived out their lives away from such foolishness.

When we got home, Grandpa noted, “At least the turkeys weren’t frozen. He could’ve killed somebody.” For several weeks after that, it seemed like Mr. LaFevre kept to himself a little more than usual. But really, nobody held “the day it rained turkey’s” against him. We all knew his intentions were good.