I froze and Wild Willie went pale while twisting his head toward Turk so fast that it took two of us to pull a hot wing out of his nose after he regained consciousness. Turk hadn't mentioned a word about Ralph in over two years and we both thought that the ole curmudgeon must have assumed room temperature or finally flew the coop forever. Wrong again. Why were we so upset? Simply put, I hold Ralph in the same high regard that I would a prostrate the size of a regulation hockey puck and he just plain scares the Duct tape patched Jockeys off of W.W. Let me explain.

Turk owns a farm and on that farm he raises a meals-on-the- hoof-n-claw menagerie. He is a bit of a survivalist and has enough goodies stored in his underground root cellar to feed himself until New Year's Eve 3010. He raises chickens, pigs, goats, rabbits, ducks and a few turkeys. It was from the latter flock that Ralph rose from a mutant egg to become one of the nastiest creatures lumbering around the planet. He is an avian porker and an eating machine that has ballooned up so much that he's become a huge breast with feet. He also has the personality of a piranha on crack and is so devious that he has managed to avoid the annual Thanksgiving axe until he has become so old and tough that the only edible part of his body is his beak.

Most everyone in our circle of acquaintances thought for sure that when Ralph suddenly disappeared from view a few years back that Turk must had finally given up and took him out with an anti tank weapon. Either that or sold him to the Macy Corporation for use in their Thanksgivings Day Parade as a full sized float.

Ralphy had been a pain in the butt ever since he hit teen turkeyhood. At first, we all thought it was cool when he developed an attitude and a strut that sent the turkettes swooning and other young toms ducking for cover. We were even more impressed when he kicked the dog hair off a couple of raiding coyotes and flat mugged a young marauding eagle. But Ralph really earned his wings as the ultimate guard bird when he jumped a young bear sniffing around a rabbit hutch and ran it off a small bluff in the back forty. We all thought that he had a great future until he went rogue and decided that he was some sort of adolescent gangsta gobbler and started jackin' every visitor to the farm.

Wild Willie was his first victim and barely escaped with his manhood intact. The poor guy still talks two octaves higher that he used to. Ralph even tried to take me out when I brought Turk's Harley back after a summer run to Soldotna. I had just turned around in the yard when the feathered blimp crashed down on my neck from the porch roof. Needless to say, for a couple of minutes there, I thought I was going to end up as Ralph's afternoon snack. Elbows, wings, dirt and things flew until Turk managed to get a chain around the frenzied fowl's neck and drug it off me with his pickup truck. Needless to say, we weren't the only ones attacked as the turkey terrorist grew up and soon there was a contract out on Ralph's head. That's when he mysteriously disappeared and Turk hadn't mentioned him, until now.

"Ralph? Did you say Ralph? I I thought that cretin was compost!" I stammered.

"N-n-n-n-nooo way, Dude. Say it ain't so, man." Willie whined. I wouldn't go near that @&%*tch even efen I was in a tank."

"Well, thanks a lot guys. I've been secretly rehabbing the boy and he's ready to go public again. In fact, I'm putting him up for sale as a free- range turkey for the Holidays. I thought you would like to say goodbye."

Well, we went and were shocked. Ralph had slimmed down to baster size and was as quiescent as a bunny on 'ludes. He just sat there and stared at us and I must say we were impressed until we looked into his eyes and he smirked.

Turk said he sold Ralph last week to a dealer in live birds. If you are going shopping for a fresh gobbler this weekend, make sure you get it processed rather than doing it yourself. If you don't, you could end up as the centerpiece. I have nothing more to say. You have been warned.

Nick C. Varney can be reached at wufferdawg@hotmail.com.