Urban Poverty Law Center Secretary Reports Bizzare Experience: Jack, Is That You?

Readers,

I am still trembling from my experience. I do not write much, only transcribe the letters Jack Maybolt, Jr dictated through the years here at UPLC. I will try to relate this just as it happened.

It has been very hectic since Jackson died so unexpectedly in the fiery crash yesterday. His home has been inundated with gift baskets and flowers from all over the world. Stop sending this stuff, there is no one to enjoy them as he was a solitary figure and pretty much kept to himself.

Anyway, I went to the chicken yard to feed his aging chickens and I noticed the most peculiar thing. One of the older hens, a red, was keeping off to herself standing on a board that had fallen off the old barn. I thought it rather odd when the old gal stayed there when I threw the cup full of chopped corn and laying pellets into the chicken yard as the other chickens ran helter skelter and begin feeding.

Then the tapping began and its rhythm was something out of character and both odd yet familiar to me at the same time. I turned around and saw that old hen was tapping out what I recognized to be Morse code!

I only know this forgotten skill because my favorite uncle, Bob Chiggerbaum, was a communications specialist on a submarine during WWII and he taught me all the letters when I was 6 yrs old and he would play games with me by tapping out messages to me over the phone and I enjoyed doing this with him until his death when I was a middle aged woman.

Needless to say, I was frightened. Was the stress of Jackson's untimely death and all the stress getting to me? Well, I listened, first an S, followed by a definite U, then another S, then a definite A, and finally an N. My name! What are the odds that any chicken could tap out that series of dots and dashes in just the right order?

Next, letter I, then T, then S, followed by M, and E, and then a Q, then an A, then C, THen K,

SUSAN ITS ME QACK.

I read what I had printed aloud, and the chicken who was calm became animated and flopped around for a while and then back on the board with more tapping.

First letter N, then O, then N, then O, then T, then Q, then A, then C, then K, then J, then A, then C, then K, then the chicken walked to the chicken wire and looked at me with its yellow eyes and winked at me.

NO NOT QACK JACK.

I turned and ran back to the house and wrote it all down just as it happened.

More to follow, if I can get the nerve to go back out to the chicken yard.

Susan Blunderdoss, Secretary, Urban Poverty Law Center