Bill Rausch

And the Chickens Danced Bill Rausch

Her chickens, fierce descendants of dinosaurs, were no match for my dear, sweet grandmother as she tore them from their death-row coop, hacked off their heads, and tossed the blood-gushing feather-storms into her barnyard. I peeked around her skirt and trembled at the danse macabre. Move over Freud. My life's retelling is set down in snappy chapters. Snippets of life that beckon the reader to join in as we navigate my little-boy adventures. Sit on the front porch as I shout at Old Man Peters' coonhounds getting themselves all lathered up for yet another all-night yelp-a-thon. Climb up on the fence and watch the rodeo-rider Pigboys mount their steely-eyed sows in Ray's Stockyard. Share in my old man's shame of being conned by some shyster's get-rich oil well scheme "...sommers down in Kansas." Only to lose his ass (and half a year's grocery money). Catch a whiff of potatoes and onions gone bad in Robicks Mom& Pop grocery. And be astonished as the Deuter brothers and I explore the "science" of near-lethal backyard "gaslighting." Well, okay, our gaslighting was intestinally generated and, for the most part, umm, harmless. Boys do that. Don't they? I pull back the curtain to expose a cast of misfits that congregate in coffee shops, beer taverns, and church halls in small towns from Maine to Monterey. And the Chickens Danced will capture the hearts and imaginations of anyone who survived a childhood speckled with adventure, drunk uncles, and double-dog-dare friends.