On the left is one of the University of Delaware's lesser landmarks - the giant metal chicken next to the Pencader staircase. Legend has it that the bird was donated by a wealthy alumnus, one who had given large sums to the University in the past. Despite its visual abrasiveness, the president of the time accepted the gift, and placed it in a prominent part of campus, a move he hoped would show the proper amount of appreciation for such a grand gift. However, right after the donor passed away they quietly and quickly moved it to where it stands now- in a non-prominent, non-prestigious corner of the campus. I guess they were no longer afraid the guy would ask for his money back.

I used to live near this statue, and would pass it often, in doing so contemplating exactly what was this guy thinking when he bought this for the University. Sometimes I would worry that an errant bolt of lightning or perhaps a blue moon would shine and the statue would break it's metallic bonds, fly into the night, and possibly crave human flesh...or at the very least, lay some frighteningly large giant metallic eggs. Usually these sorts of thoughts came to me while my friends were flinging the occasional small stone at the structure. I remember that it made quite the distinctive pinging noise.

I didn't partake in the rock throwing myself, for I was always wound way too tight for that sort of mischief. It was always in the back of my mind that the day I winged a stone off that steel hen was the day the president was escorting the family of the guy who donated it around campus, and was just popping over to show them where they moved that nice statue that Daddy donated a few years' ago.

For some reason, it started to bother me that I felt this way, so I made a secret pact with myself that before I graduated I was going to whack that thing at least once with a piece of the local terrain. I finally got around to it about two days before graduation, when I had a few hours to myself on an almost completely deserted campus. Walking by the status I picked up a small, round stone off the ground, went into a pitching stance, wound up and let the statue have it.

Well, the statue would've had it if it had been just a little taller. My rock careened about five feet over its head and hit a tree behind it, which didn't make a distinctive pinging noise. More of a thud, really. Appalled at my own inabilty to throw something, I was too embarassed at myself to try again. The bird had proven once more to be a wily and elusive opponent. I reckoned that such mischief just didn't come easily to me. Or arm control.