School Story:
It was the night before the big Airport football game our senior year. After eating our pregame steak from Vella's, most of the football team went “hunting”. We turned our black football jerseys inside out so you could not see our numbers and left in pursuit of our catch. We were looking for a live chicken.
Luckily, I knew a house in West Columbia that had chickens in their backyard. After we quietly tiptoed into the unsuspecting neighbor's chicken coop, BC's crack defensive team went into action. I believe it was Ricky Coward whose quick hands karate chopped a startled bird from her roost. Tommy Outlaw grabbed the unlucky hen and we sprinted to our waiting get-away car. We threw the chicken in the trunk of Chris Carter's car and headed to the railroad trestle over Knox Abbott Dr. The cheerleaders had already prepared a banner to hang over the bridge that proclaimed "Keep on Plucking". The chicken, hanging along with the sign, would certainly guarantee our victory over the "Eagles".
We almost pulled it off without a hitch except for the fact when we went to extract the dead chicken from the trunk of Chris's car, the poultry was still very much alive and very ticked off. We were caught so off guard that we slammed the trunk lid closed. Unfortunately, in all of the excitement, we also locked the car keys in the trunk along with the flapping bird. Our only option was to call Mr. Carter to the rescue. To this day I do not know if he knew what we were up to because he never asked why BC’s football team was stranded in the dark empty parking lot of KMart the night before our big game. He just handed us a spare key, shook his head and drove off.
I don’t know if you saw the sign and the unfortunate chicken on the way to the game but it must have worked...we "plucked" the Airport "chickens"… 28 – 3 !!
