It was a dark and stormy night. . . . Well, it was dark, I know that. This was a summer day back probably ten years ago in Richmond, Virginia. My wonderfully non-conformist friend John Adams announced to us that we would surely want to come with him that night on a "Chicken Roundup".

My brother Scott happened to be visiting from Ohio, and we definitely were up for anything out of the ordinary, and we did get it that night. Out in the country, on a chicken farm owned by a notable name in chickens, there was to be, according to John's inside information, a roundup. As we found out, hundreds, possibly thousands, of white chickens were being raised in this huge building, open, with a dirt floor, with carousel like feeders throughout. When the chickens were a certain age or size or something, they had to be taken in trucks to the plant. But how do you get those birds to travel, you ask?

You back up a semi or two with cages on it. Then in the dark of night, with spotlights and action, these men swoop into the teeming clucking masses of birds grabbing clusters of them upside down by the legs, and stuff them brawking into the cages on the trucks. It was a festive night for us, witnessing this action as observers, rooting for a bird here or there to make a dash for the woods to escape, and I suppose somebody or other might have yelled YEE-HAW! It was a night to remember, the chickens didn't know what hit them, but we all knew it was the final trip for them.

Well, I just read a postscript to this story just by chance! Somebody has invented a machine to automate the chicken roundup! It still catches the birds by surprise, but it is much more humane than grabbing, dangling and stuffing. If they keep it up, they'll take the adventure out of everything!