Clams and Chickens

While browsing through old newspapers online I ran across an interesting little piece. It concerned my Great Grand Uncle and his chickens. The exact date escapes me at the moment but it was somewhere in the 1940's.

The Article as it appeared.

Oh the problems people can have. Who would have thought a clam would kill a chicken ? I read this article with amusement. It did raise a few questions however. Why would you have chickens in your basement ? Seems like a smelly operation to me. And store clams there too. Surely this was a one time freak accident of some kind. Either that or my Uncle was pretty eccentric. My Aunt must have been a tolerate woman as well. I can't imagine what my own wife would say if I wanted to keep chickens in the basement !

Reading this did remind me of a time when reading the newspaper was a relaxing thing. Yes,they had their share of bad news back then but for the most part the news was interesting and informative. Look at a paper today and the content. It almost always is about crime and corruption. The headlines are about horrific things. People starving to death, others being abducted, children abused. They are pretty depressing things,Newspapers.

Granted this was in a local newspaper and listed along with a lot of other social notes. Who was visiting whom and the results of the Women's Aid Society fundraiser. Still and all the paper made for a pleasant read. It was a different time and the papers didn't feel the need to shock the public.

I suppose the days of reading the morning paper are almost over. Few do I think. I get the majority of my news on the television and the internet. We are all in too much of a hurry to sit and read anymore. Multi tasking is the name of the game. Get the news while eating your breakfast or checking your status on facebook. Modern day people seldom focus on one thing at a time. Everything is multi now. Even our cereals are multi-grained.

Well,as I always tell the grand kids, focus,you must focus ! Do not lose focus on the task at hand. A line from one of my favorite TV shows,MASH,comes to mind. Charles Emerson Winchester says, " I do one thing at a time,I do it very well,and then I move on."

My Uncle George would have been well advised to follow that advice. Putting chickens and clams in the same basement lead to tragedy. At least for the chicken it did. Lesson learned.