Brookline turkeys still bad to the bone

Neither snow, nor sleet, nor gloom of turkey,
Shall keep this courier from their appointed rounds.

We will arise and go now, and go to Brookline,
And a small nest build there, of feathers and wattles made;
Nine cranberry bogs will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the Toms gobble;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of hens' wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear pond water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I trot on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

are smart enough to focus their attacks on government representatives in uniform that don't carry sidearms.

I remember reading that some postal workers in the field carry pepper spray to fend off aggressive dogs. Gotta be a dilemma in the moment of crisis, though: Ben Franklin invented the postal service, but also advocated for the turkey to be the national bird over the bald eagle. What to do? What to do?

I'm reminded of the time when I was a little kid and my dad came home from work as a skunk was chewing through the garbage bags parked outside the back door for him to take to the curb. From the safety of the kitchen, my brothers and sisters and I shouted, "Dad! Dad! Skunk!" Dad stopped a few feet away, grinned, proceeded to harangue the skunk in his comical, joke-telling voice: "Get away from my garbage, you, you...!" We all laughed.

The skunk looked up, then charged at my dad, who jumped a foot in the air, then stumblingly retreated by taking a wide circle around the back of the house. We raced to the back living room window: Dad had stopped and looked behind him to find the skunk still in hot pursuit. A former semi-pro football QB, he put his head down and sprinted all the way around to the usually-locked front door where we'd run to let him in, breathless and sweating. The skunk then completed its victory lap around the house back to the trash, where it resumed its dinner.

I carry that vivid lesson to this day. Nature: don't fuck with it.