Re: the discussion on chickens...
I grew up on a mini-farm in Amish country, USA. We had chickens, turkeys, rabbits, pigs, goats, cats, dogs, guinea hens, etc., etc.! My dad slaughtered the chickens by chopping off their heads, and then he would line them up on the shelf in the lower barn and say he was taking a head count
. When we slaughtered the turkeys my sister and I had the job of dipping the decapitated bodies into boiling water (you hold on to the feet) and then plucking the feathers.
And those are just a few of the stories we told our friends to properly shock and horrify them
. (They are true, btw.)
We also lived next to an old cemetery and spent many happy evenings playing "Ghost in the Graveyard" (IN the graveyard) and hide-and-seek. Many people nowadays would find that to be morbid, but we never stopped playing long enough to properly appreciate the horror of tombstones.
I'm not traumatized. I had a very rich childhood, and enjoyed chicken and turkey dinners as they deserved. Actually my siblings and I have turned out far better than most of our "city slicker" friends, for various reasons. I think some of that has to do with our parents never thinking twice about letting us see life (and death). We were better prepared to deal with reality when it did come.
rusmeister, have you ever read
Politically Correct Bedtime Stories? I can't remember the author right now, but he re-writes all the fairy tales according to our modern tastes. I'll dig up some quotes from it; they're priceless :)
She hoped to be wise and reasonable in time; but alas! alas! she must confess to herself that she was not wise yet. ~ Jane Austen, Persuasion