Saturday, December 09, 2006

Arise, Chicken!

May 9, 2006:

As Jason and I walked up the long hill from the ferry terminal to the path leading through the woods to his house, my weary legs groaned from a marathon two days prior, and I continually forced myself to take in the bright, beautiful day on Anderson Island and not stare numbly at my feet. During one of many transitions from feet to sky, my eyes caught sight of a mailbox with "JOE PEPIN" stenciled in black letters on a white reflective background. Something deep in my brain recognized the name and vainly vied for my conscious attention, but he was lost in the sights of the oceanside farmland mingled with dense evergreen forest, not to mention distracted by my groaning quadriceps. We continued up the hill, and I thought little more about the mailbox and its owner.
At the next building about fifty meters farther, Jason remarked that the owners of this place kept fighting roosters, to which I replied, "No way. We're not in Puerto Rico, man." As we neared the "game cock" pen, there were several of the menacing beasts wandering aimlessly outside the roadside pen.
A rattled and wide-eyed Jason exclaimed, "There out!" and seemed to think that these prized fighters would pounce upon us at any moment like starved wolves.
"They're not going to hurt anything, but someone might want to know their chickens are out," I replied, peering around the yard for the chickens' owner.
Seeing no one in sight, we walked toward the gate and called out a greeting. A man appeared shortly, but I didn't see where he came from--somewhere to the left of my vision as I watched Jason warily watching the chickens. "Uh, hello?" he said, obviously unsure why we were there.
"Your chickens are out," I said flatly, motioning toward the fowl.
The man looked around at the birds and swore, "Damn chickens." If the targets of his curse understood, they hid the fact well and just ignored him, roaming and pecking and clucking.
"You want some help getting them back in?"
"Sure."
As we helped herd the chickens through the gate, the broken latch of which was responsible for the escape, Joe introduced himself, and we chatted for a few minutes. Once the poultry was secure, Joe asked where we were heading and if we wanted a ride, and we graciously accepted--not because it was too far, but because we only had a short time before the next ferry and still needed to paint some of the trim on Jason's house. During the 5-minute ride, a message finally reached my conscious mind: Joe Pepin is the guy who did the voice for the Curious George plush doll! That's right!
"Wait a minute," I said, "I heard you on 103.7 The Mountain last week. You're Joe Pepin, the guy who did the voice for the Curious George plush doll, right?"
"Yeah, that's me," he replied.
The last few minutes of the ride were filled with conversation of his home studio, other voices he'd done, and Anderson Island, sanctuary for celebrities, and we told him some stuff about us, too.
And that's how Jason's house got painted.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Joe Pepin is the guy who did the voice for the Curious George plush doll!"

Why the planet of hell do you know that?

9:02 PM  

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