Primroses and turkeys

I think we're entering a dark, ugly period of American history.   I hope I'm wrong, but it feels like the roller coaster left the station and there's no going back.  Fasten your seat belts.  In Seattle these days, there's a background miasma of gloom and anxiety.  It's probably not like that in other parts of the country, but I'm glad we live here.

The bottom line is nothing changes because human nature never changes. Just pick up a history book.

OK. Enough politics for one post.

All the more reason to notice the small gifts each new day brings.  Like the first primroses outside the grocery store.  Or a flock of happy heritage turkeys running around at a feed store on Vashon Island.

They were so beautiful and loaded with personality!  I'd rather eat crackers for Thanksgiving than dispatch one.  These fortunate, fancy birds are completely unlike the poor top-heavy creatures waddling around by the millions on factory farms. 

Everyone knows the myth of Benjamin Franklin preferring the wild turkey over the bald eagle for national bird, despite being "a little vain and silly." 

"For in Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America. Eagles have been found in all Countries, but the Turkey was peculiar to ours, the first of the Species seen in Europe being brought to France by the Jesuits from Canada, and serv’d up at the Wedding Table of Charles the ninth. He is besides, tho’ a little vain and silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on.”