The hotly contested presidential election is over and the Turkey is glad. The campaign lasted about two months too long for my taste. The rhetoric has thankfully ceased, and we won’t have to hear “I’m Joe Blow and I approved this message” again, perhaps for a couple of years. Now, we can go back to business as usual, absent this nasty campaign’s continual assault on our eyes and ears (and frequently, our noses). The wounds caused by the lengthy and vitriolic campaign will heal, because we’re a great country with great people who happen to disagree on issues—at some times, more dramatically than at others.
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I have survived two hurricanes in less than a month, as have many other Floridians. We have a third one on the way, which nobody wants to talk about. This experience has traumatized most of us in one way or another. I want to share some of my feelings with my vast readership (both of you).

It has been over 10 years since Florida bore the brunt of a major hurricane—Andrew, in 1992. Andrew, although powerful, wreaked its devastation over a small area. Thus, Floridians in parts of the state that were not affected by Andrew—which means all but Miami-Dade, Broward, Collier, and Monroe Counties in the very southern tip of Florida—have not seen a major hurricane in a long, long time. Couple this with the great influx of new people to Florida and you have a collective citizenry that doesn’t understand the implications of a major hurricane.

So, as it became clear that Hurricane Charley would hit Florida, the typical reaction was complacency. This was confirmed by man on the street interviews on radio and TV. Those people just didn’t understand what they were dealing with. People like that stay at home, even if they live in a mobile home that could not possibly stay together in a minimal hurricane, let alone a Category 4 with 145 mph winds.

Alas, people who did understand the implications of a Category 4 storm bearing down on Florida learned about the inherent inaccuracy of weather forecasts. Forecasters had Charley aimed at Tampa Bay. Scads of residents of low-lying areas around Tampa headed for Orlando, an inland destination with lots of hotel rooms. Charley wound up missing Tampa; he scored a direct hit on Orlando. So much for forecasting.

One Orlando TV station’s chief meteorologist made the correct call on the day Charley hit Florida, saying that the big storm would hit Ft. Myers, considerably south of Tampa, and then cut a diagonal across the state through Orlando and Daytona Beach. The National Hurricane Center discounted his analysis. Needless to say, that TV station used its I-told-you-so for self-promotion. This Turkey feels that natural disasters should inspire teamwork and generosity, not pissing contests and commercialism.
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The domesticated version of the wild turkey, the Nittany, was bred for market use by Pennsylvania (College) State University in the 1930s. Selections were made for developing a docile temperament, improving egg production and increasing the quality of a finished carcass. Proposed standard weights were 20 pounds for a adult tom and 12 pounds for a adult female. These weights show the smallest sex differences of any variety of domesticated turkey. The Nittany’s covert and main tail feathers are marked transversely with brown and black penciling, and tipped with a solid black band, which in turn is edged completely with chestnut brown. It seems to have lacked the coppery bronze band in the tail that is in the Eastern wild. Even though no one indicated having Nittanys on the survey, I believe it is very possible that some of the captive wild turkeys listed under the Eastern wilds are Nittanys or Nittany crosses with wilds. One interesting survey came in that describes his flock resulting from saving light-colored turkeys that are similar in color to Bourbon Reds, out of his original flock of commercially raised Eastern Wild turkeys. These birds are colored like Bourbons, but retain “all the wild traits” such as “thin necks, long legs, alert, intelligent and can fly.” It is possible that they could be Nittany descendants?

http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/SPPA/TurkCensusRept.html