Turkey Dinner

Let's go shoot some turkeys!  I've got my turkey huntin' hat.  I've got my turkey huntin' end tables.  I've got my Turkey Plinko tickets...

It all makes perfect sense, if you were at Friday's fundraising dinner to support the conservation of Canada's wild turkeys.  Save the turkeys!  So that we can shoot them later!

Right.  So, Ken got involved because he feels strongly about gun ownership rights, and is actively involved in a few organizations that lobby the government in this regard.  He has never been hunting, so far.  He does target practice at an indoor shooting range.  But if supporting the turkey people will support gun rights, then by golly he'll support the turkey people.

Last night we went to the turkey peoples' banquet.  Ticket sales for the dinner were supplemented by several raffles, a silent auction, and a live auction. Our first order of business was a tour of the hall to view all the loot and decide which raffles we wanted in on.  We bought a bunch of tickets and dumped them into open buckets by the most appealing prizes: a set of memory foam pillows, a sleek gun case, and, among other things, a two-foot-long flashlight with a bulb the size of a dinner plate.  The "Cyclops Thor X Colossus" offers 18 million candle-powers' worth of blinding brightness.   Ken really wanted to win The Cyclops.

We entered separate raffles for the big prizes: various types of expensive shotguns and hunting rifles.  To spice things up, instead of paying a fixed price per ticket, you paid to play a game which would determine how many tickets you could put into that raffle.  I rocked the Turkey Plinko board and won a ton of tickets for a pump-action shotgun. 

We toured live auction items to see if there was anything we'd like to bid on.  It was mostly artwork, of a style that would look at home in an old-fashioned, log-cabin cottage or farmhouse.  For example, there was a bronze sculpture of three Canada geese in flight.  There was a photo-realistic painting of a blond Labrador puppy with his head cocked to one side and a beseeching look in his eyes.  I fell in love with a print called "Evening Echoes", which featured a herd of moose grazing at sunset in hilly terrain.  The focal moose was bellowing with his neck stretched out long and low.  It was as kitschy as they come, but the artist had truly captured a moment there.  I could practically hear that stupid moose holler.

We found seats for dinner with some very pleasant company.  I was thrilled to discover that the quiet, 60-ish gentleman seated to my left was the auctioneer.  I've never met an auctioneer before.  Our other tablemates immediately launched into turkey tale-telling.  Like there's this one guy who lives in the country and he feeds wild turkeys in his backyard.  At any given time you can go over to his house and see between 30 and 50 of them wandering around out there, no word of a lie.  They come up and peck on his glass patio doors to get fed.  But he's a little scared of them so he never goes out to refill the feeders without a big stick.  Wild turkeys can be vicious, I heard.

One of the women at the table had helped to set up the event.  Between the live auction, the silent auction, and the raffles, there were quite a few firearms on display at the banquet hall.  Apparently they were all couriered to her home, and when she wasn't there to sign for the packages, including all the expensive guns, the driver left the boxes stacked on her front porch and took off.  Anyone could have helped themselves to an array of high-class weapons.  Fortunately nothing was stolen.

When all was said and done, Ken dropped a lot of cash, but got good value for his money.  My Turkey Plinko tickets won him that pump-action shotgun worth several hundred dollars.  He scored some items in the silent auction at bargain basement prices.  And in the live auction we ended up impulse-buying a set of wood-and-glass end tables at $150 for the set.  I swear they would have gone for at least $500 at the fancy stores on Queen St. East.

We did not buy "Evening Echoes", though I was sorely tempted.  Almost all artwork went at the reserve bids.  It was not an art-lovin' crowd, for sure.  All the love in that room was reserved for the turkeys.

The proceeds from the evening will be put towards various means of conserving wild turkeys and their territory.  I even heard talk of plans to introduce wild turkeys into Toronto's Don Valley river system.  Wouldn't that be a blast.  Maybe a few years from now I'll be turkey-spotting on my way to work.  Or running from them, since they're so mean.  Good thing I've got a turkey huntin' cap now (free with the purchase of raffle tickets).  That'll scare'em good.