Episode Seven: A Chicken is the Most Pitiful of All Birds
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I can’t really say where the inspiration for Uncle Faucett’s love of birds came from. Except, maybe, it had to do with the eagle head my dad carved for me with his chainsaw. I remember telling Daddy that I thought it looked like a chicken.
Don’t judge. I found the chicken/eagle in the basement. It’s made of cedar. It was my dad’s first and ONLY piece of chainsaw art, as far as I know. He soon decided that maybe chainsaw art wasn’t his calling. Then he made me a cedar table. Cedar was Daddy’s favorite wood. It had been handed down to him by his mom that cedar was a sacred wood. We always had cedar in our house. Sometimes, it was only a box of cedar shavings from his whittling and carvings. In the winter, he’d sit beside the wood stove, a box at his feet. He’d carve things for us kids, necklaces, tiny toys, etc. He was much better with a knife that he was with a chainsaw. Maybe it was his carving that inspired me to make Uncle Faucett a carver.
I want to mention this about today’s episode. Bob’s rage and worldviews are not intended to reflect anyone I know. This includes both the living and the dead.
I read this novel in the dialect of its characters.
Looking for Pork Chop McQuade is a modern fiction set in rural Appalachia. The cast is a colorful set of folksy characters. While on the surface, the story holds a great deal of humor. It actually addresses big life issues. These include duplicity, paranoia, mental illness, codependency, abuse, loss, and grief.
After her father’s death, Cupcake McQuade becomes the caregiver for her great uncle, Faucett McCaughy. Named for her mother’s obsession with desserts, she also offers emotional support to her sister, Cookie.
In this episode she and Cookie learn that Faucett has been arrested. And you, the listener, get to meet the cast of characters.
Meet Cupcake McQuade. She is the main character who takes care of her great uncle, her eccentric spouse and her depressed sister.
Faucett is her ninety-four-year-old great uncle whose mind isn’t what it used to be and Bob, aka. Pork Chop, Cupcake’s husband, isn’t keen on him living so close to them.
Then there’s Thomas Jeffery, Cookie’s husband, who wants only one thing–to see his wife happy.
Goodbye, Marian. Episode 27
The Swimming Hole, Episode 25
To Visit Elaine, episode 24
Undercover and Too Close for Comfort. Episode 23.
Spending a Night in a Cheap Motel. Episode 22.
The Mount Mariah Spiders. Episode 21.
Spying on Daniel/a comical romance. Episode 20
Aliens Took Him/humorous crime fiction. Episode 20
Conversation and Chinese Food, humorous crime fiction. Episode 19
Episode 18 Daniel Discovers the Shed/humorous crime fiction
Humorous Crime Fiction/Episode 17: Search for Missing Man Begins
Episode Sixteen: Bob is Missing
Episode Fifteen: Marian Ransom
Episode 14: The Big Bug
Episode Thirteen: The Party
Episode Twelve: Daniel Invites Cupcake to a Party
Episode Eleven: Enter Jimbo, the Mechanic
Episode Ten: He Can’t Call Her Cupcake
Episode Nine: Odie’s Diner
Episode Eight, Cages
Episode Seven: A Chicken is the Most Pitiful of All Birds
