What comes to mind when you think of chickens?
Chickens seem to play a larger role in my life than I ever anticipated. For example, on the wall of the space where I write and think, I have hung a large poster of a black-and-white photograph of a chicken, held upside down by its legs.A man in a butcher's coat is holding a knife at the ready. The chicken is about to be slaughtered. Underneath the photograph are these words: "Sometimes things are just as bad as they seem."
Alongside the poster, pinned to the wall by a cord tied to its back legs, is a rubber chicken. A featherless, yellow, gape-mouthed rubber rooster. This ubiquitous classic comic's prop is available in every joke-and-novelty store as standard gag material. Rubber chickens are absurd, ludicrous and funny.
A third image exists in my mind's eye: It's Ralph the Rooster, a pet chicken I had for several years in childhood. Ralph, the wonder chicken, who followed me around like a dog wherever I went and sat quietly in my arms like a contented cat.
Take the image of the chicken about to die, the rubber chicken and the memory of Ralph - and throw in the tale of Chicken Little, for whom the sky was always falling, the story of the Little Red Hen, healing properties of chicken soup, the metaphors we attach to eggs and all the chicken jokes you know.
Pretty soon, you've got enough material for a kind of philosophy of life based on chickens.
Recently, I've spent a lot of time with chickens. When I take my small granddaughters to the zoo, they go straight to the petting pen. They can get in and mingle with a flock of friendly fowl - Rhode Island reds. These are city girls, and chickens are exotic birds to them.
Once, I gave them a rubber chicken. They gave me a puzzled look. Rubber chickens make me laugh, and I always carry one with me in my briefcase. As for the little girls, they don't get it. And it made me wonder, too. What is it with rubber chickens? Why are they funny - and only to adults?
So, I went on a quest.
All arrows pointed to a guy who would know: Gene Rose, the owner of Loftus Novelty and Magic Co. in Salt Lake City. You might not expect Salt Lake to be the rubber-chicken capital of the universe, but it's true. Gene and his wholesale company have more or less cornered the market - buying out manufacturers in other countries and developing a rubber chicken that looks great, lasts a long time and is reasonably priced. It's the best-selling rubber chicken in the world.
I went to visit him. He and his wife gave me a tour of their warehouse and took me to lunch - fine folks.
Loftus makes the chickens in a factory near Oxnard, Calif. A hinged mold is sprayed inside with a secret latex formula, producing a carcass that looks just ghastly. Each chicken is hand-sprayed yellow, and its feet and comb are dipped in a vat of orange-red paint.
Mr. Rose wouldn't divulge his numbers, but given the stack of crates of chickens I saw in his warehouse, he's moving a lot of chickens. And has been for a long time. He's tried rubber pigs, alligators, spiders, worms, snakes, ducks and turkeys. Only the chickens steadily, consistently, reliably sell. And they have been an item for more than 100 years for sure, maybe longer. Worldwide. Whenever I travel abroad, I look for rubber chickens. So far, I've always found them - in England, France, Greece, the Czech Republic and Japan, to name a few.
Why?
Mr. Rose doesn't know. No novelty store owner or comic or magician I've talked to knows where the rubber chicken originated or why it has universal appeal. I could cobble up a theory. Or make up something. And a psychiatrist might have some thoughts.
But somebody out there must have the real story.
Readers of this column are invited to contribute to this cultural vacuum. What do you know about the history of rubber chickens? And why are they funny? Write me if you know. If you don't know, convincing fiction is welcome.
Write to Robert Fulghum in care of this newspaper (Deseret News, P.O. Box 1257, Salt Lake City, UT 84110). All letters will be treated confidentially.