Our farm was all alive and abuzz for Independence Day. The animals told us not to worry about entertainment and that they ‘had it covered’. Not being entirely trusting we made ourselves food, just in case. We found out this was prudent of us, because none of us are particularly fond of chicken scratch or dried bugs. As we sat down to eat, our family was informed that Uffie (a chicken hen in case you don’t remember) wished to make a speech. Since it was so amusing, I feel compelled to share it with everyone.
“ATT-HEN-TION! … I wish to begin the long awaited speech.” Uffie stated very matter-of-factly.
The crowd of animals gathered there who were contently munching on watermelon rinds, seemed to have some confusion about there being a speech as a part of the evenings proceedings. However, Uffie continued.
“As you all know, it is customary to give a speech about Tuppence Day, and this year I have been given the privilege to do so.”
“Uffie! It is ‘Independence Day’ not Tuppence Day.” my Dad, who is from England, corrected her.
“Yes, yes, quite right, ‘swat I said.” Uffie said defensively.
“For all of you gathered here who are not familiar with the origin of Independence Day or of our proud American history, I wish to fill all of you in on your missing pieces of education.
Also, I wish to remind all of you loyal citizens that today is an important milestone in the history of our nation. Many many years ago, even before Cinnamon was a little egg, America gained their independence from Great Britain. Every year people across America and even to the far reaches of Mercury, commemorate this event. Therefore, I feel that it is my duty to give you some history of this great nation.
In the year of 1775 B.C. (Before Chickens), there was the world. And there was no America. But by the kindness of the mosquitos, our dear America began to take shape. It started out as just a little island where the passengers of the Aprilflower landed. The Aprilflower had a famous captain called Lewis Clark. When the humans from the Aprilflower landed they paid tribute to us kind chickens for our supplying them eggs during their voyage. Each person went and placed a pillbug or a cockroach or a spider or a moth on a special rock. Now it happened that moths were very easy to catch, because all you had to do was light a candle at night and they would all come flying. So the rock was often covered in dozens of moths giving it the name of FlyMoth Rock.
Then America grew a bit bigger, and people called Ative Mericans came about, and they helped the Aprilflowers, by giving them lots and lots of turkeys. The Aprilflowers liked turkeys and in turn gave the Ative Mericans cool hats. This is why every year we celebrate Thanksgiving with turkeys and cool hats. After a lot of time something similar to what we call America came to be.
The people that came from the Aprilflower as well as those that came later (like those from the MayShower and JuneBug) were called the Colonists and there were those across the pond were called the British. After sometime the British and the Colonists disagreed about stuff.
To clear up any misunderstandings they had a friendly tea party on a boat. There were scones and crumpets, but I suppose the tea itself must have been terrible, because they ended up dumping it overboard. After a little while later they had a kindly war. It was over in a very short time, and only a loss of three chickens were reported. So then America was free to have its own rules regarding whether or not chickens are allowed to cross the road. The law states that if a chicken wants to cross the road, that they first must explain why. Hence the question ‘why did the chicken cross the road?’ Unlike England, America decided to have a President instead of a Queen or King. For our first President we chose George Washington, who liked chickens. He also was a great leader in our peaceful war.
Eventually, we in America had a civil war. All kinds of people sat around a table with civilware and civilly chatted to one another. They accomplished a good many things. All the people there agreed to not eat iguanas or camels, which up until this point had caused some contention.”
We noticed Uffie quickly look down at something that must have been her notes, then she looked up and sorrowfully said…
“Ohhh Nooo!! I forgot to mention the Coolisiana Purchase! Real quick, this won’t take but a minute. The leaders of this country went to the world shopping mall and bought some land that was connected to the piece that we already had. So we expanded America to include places that had really cool air. At least in the winter, when summer rolled around it got pretty warm, just about as hot as it is right now [Uffie waved her wing for dramatic effect]. In these places that America bought there was good farm land, so lots of people moved out there.
A long time later a bad thing happened. The world went into a world war. Being a chicken, as I am, I happen to know very little about it. Personally, I think it had something to do with catnip, because I have heard it can be very troublesome for certain types of domestic animals. But as I said, I am just a chicken, so I really don’t know much about the whole situation.
Then something worse happened. Another world war got started. This is WWII, which I think stands for World War International & Intergalatical, because there was war everywhere. Somewhere I even saw that a telegraph arrived from the north pole asking our help to aid the penguins in their fight to conquer the puffins. Since I was not alive then, I really can’t tell you who ended up winning, the puffins or penguins. At least the humans in America and those on their side ended up winning their war.
Another important step for us Americans, was landing on the moon. Some smart people worked on making a ship that could go to the moon. They succeeded. Please forgive me for being short about this, but they haven’t yet sent a chicken up there, so I don’t really know what it was like. I can’t read English. And I am not bilingual. I do not talk to monkeys or dogs. [hmmph]
As far as recent history goes, if you don’t know it, pay more attention. My purpose of giving you a history of our beloved country is so that you can realize how great it is to live here. You see, on the moon there are no chickens. Since you all love chickens, you wouldn’t want to live there. So be thankful you live in America where there are stores and farmers to buy our eggs from.
Please never forget that Independence Day is about having the right to let chickens cross the road if they want to, people can eat with civilware if they choose to do so, and in America we like to be AWESOME!”
For those listening to her speech we were afraid to applaud lest it should not have finished, but when she just kind of stood there for fifteen seconds without moving or saying anything, we all started to cheer. The humans were mostly laughing at her account of the important events of this country, but we gave her credit for trying. Hope every one had a great Independence Day!
