Herman the Wonder Chicken

I'm not sure what inspired me to want to take Herman (a cement chicken) with me to New Haven for Freshman year at Yale. I actually wasn't brave enough to do it first thing in the fall, but I decided clearly enough that I wanted him that brother Dunn had to carry him through Laguardia Airport in the fall of 83. Good thing that was before the security they have in airports today, because I am sure Herman would not have made it through the carry ons.

This was the trip where upon arrival at the Old Campus, my whole family was looking for me (don't know why TGP didn't know where Phelps Hall was). They ran into Tom Fahsbender (I would love to contact him any yalies that know where he is let me know), fellow freshman, who happened to be in Calhoun College and knew me. Therefore, when TGP said "Do you know Eben Hollingsworth?", Tom was able to answer "You can't be his family, you all have shoes on". (As per the newspaper picture from 1979, I frequently did not wear shoes, even in that northern clime).


What does one do at Yale with a watch chicken, you may ask. We used him as a door stop and decoration, and the roomies were surprising tolerant (probably just thinking this was a southern thing) for all four years. I still don't know what Lo-Babe was doing with the towel in the picture.


Kim told me later on that he and sister Sophia actually lifted that cement chicken from a friend's lawn in Georgetown one night. I didn't know how it first appeared at Millstream but never thought to ask for years.

The saddest part of the Herman story is that I did not send him home after graduation. Herself claims now that she wanted to keep Herman and I refused to bring him home. I don't remember it that way, but then again, it's been over 25 years. I guess I didn't really see a concrete chicken as part of our married decorating scheme, so Herman stayed in the squash court storage in the basement of Calhoun College in May 1983. Hopefully, some underclassman put him to work the next fall. MA thinks someone probably threw him off of the balcony pictured here in the fall of 1983.

Surprisingly, years later, she wanted some homage to Herman. The chicken we bought in Pinehurst seems a pale comparison.