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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 26, 1980)
emerald Vol. 82, No. 60 Eugene, Oregon, 97403 Wednesday, November 26, 1980 Singer Michael Murphy (above) and the Mission Moun tain Wood Band entertained two audiences of400 in the Photo by Erich Boekelheide EMU Ballroom Tuesday night. Murphy is best-known for the songs "Wildfire” and "Geronimo's Cadillac.” Brooks denies pro job rumor Rich Brooks denied on Tuesday a report that the New Orleans Saints management has talked with him about coaching the National Football League team. Monday night, ABC’s Howard Cosell indicated during the network’s national broadcast of the New Orleans Saints-Los Angeles Rams game that Brooks and USC coach John Robinson might be considered as replacements for Saints coach Dick Nolan if the club could not find a pro coach with experience to take the job. Tuesday morning, Nolan, the father of Oregon safety Mike Nolan, was fired by the club. Dick Stanfel was installed as the Saints’ interim coach “I suppose it's flattering to have my name men tioned on national TV concerning a head football job in the pros," Brooks said, but he claimed there is no truth in the rumor. "I feel badly for an old friend, Dick Nolan, who I think is a fine football coach." Brooks and former Saints offensive line coach Stanfel both served under Nolan when he was the head coach of the San Fransisco 49ers. “A man who taught me a lot of my football gets fired, I’m coaching his son and then I get mentioned as his possible successor. “I have no idea where that (Cosell’s report) came from," Brooks said. No announcement of a contract extension for Brooks was made at the annual Oregon football team awards banquet Monday. Brooks has two years left on his current contract, which was last renewed in 1978 Athletic Director John Caine said the University is in the process of evaluating Brooks’ contract But, he said, “it’s obvious how we feel about him. In four years here he has done a remarkable job." T u rkey s By JIM GERSBACH Of the Emerald Would you eat meleagris gallopavo? Fact is, if you’re like most Americans you already have — and will again this Thanksgiving. In between those helpings of poor old meleagris gallopavo — turkey — and dressing, consider for a moment the story of this large fowl with the big wattle hanging from its-throat. Sometime during their 2.5 million year history, turkeys blundered into captivity and were domesticated by Native Americans, who raised them for their flesh and feathers And in the 16th Century turkeys, along with plundered gold and silver, found themselves on their way to Spain, where they were warmly received in ovens. Thanks to the Pilgrims, wild turkeys became extinct in New England before the Civil War. Turkeys of all kinds, however, continue to thrive from Penn sylvania to Florida and as far west as New Mexico. Nonetheless, Americans still malign their native poult. After studying turkeys for nearly four decades, Oregon State University poultry science Prof. James Harper says turkeys are unfairly “character ized as being kind of dumb.” “The turkey is actually very smart under wild conditions,” Harper says. “They tend to be curious. If there's some other animal walking up, a snake or a land turtle, they will come up and follow it around.” They also exhibit some peculiarly k ‘Pass the meleagris gallopavo, please’ * will be dinner-table request Thursday human failings. “They have a tendency to follow the leader,” Harper explains. “Low-flying airplanes or an owl flying overhead will spook them, and they will stampede.” Regardless, turkeys have contribut ed significantly to human culture. Long before modern dances, turn of-the-century Americans were bop ping to a ragtime dance called the turkey trot. The dance’s movements imitated turkey courting rituals. They came within a feather of being named America's national emblem. Despite Benjamin Franklin’s ar gument that the turkey is a perfect national symbol because it’s unique to the Americas, the fowl lost out to the Graphic by Sioux Anderson bald eagle. But in an ironic twist of fate, the turkey in its central role in Amer ica’s national feastday, has proliferated while the bald eagle is virtually kaput. In Oregon, turkeys are unsung her oes of agriculture During grasshopper invasions in southern and eastern Oregon, turkeys were imported to devour the bugs. The selfless birds gobbled as many as 900 locusts each, says Harper. But while Mormons erected statues that honored seagulls for devouring grasshoppers in a Utah infestation, Oregonians rewarded their feathered friends with a place of honor at the dinner table. Before the post-war influx of out siders, Oregon had more turkeys then people. Currently people outnumber turkeys two-to-one. However, scientific breeding has changed the life of the typical Oregon turkey. And microwaves and refrigera tion have transformed the traditional Thanksgiving meal. A 1916 agriculture department pamphlet provides a glimpse into how grandmothers were to prepare that Butterball turkey pictured in all those nostalgic TV ads. First, starve the turkey for 12 hours before slaughtering to reduce “fecal matter” to a minimum. Dispatching the hungry bird is best achieved as follows. “One of the most satisfactory and humane ways to kill a bird is to hang it head-downward and cut the main veins in the neck at the base of the skull so that quick bleeding is assured. “Just as soon as the veins are cut the brain should be pierced with a sharp, stiff, slender knife, to kill the bird Slicing through the right areas makes it easier to pull off the feathers, the pamphlet assures poultry pluckers. The circular warned grandma against the then-prevalent practice of soaking turkeys to increase their weight or blowing air into them to make them seem larger. "This is bad enough when a bellows is used, but when, as is sometimes the case, the dresser blows directly from his mouth it is disgusting and danger ous." So much for the good old days.
