“Gobble gobble gobble!” Now there’s a familiar phrase. But, do any of you really know what it means? No, we do not!

So, I Googled gobble. Guess what? “Gobble gobble gobble” means “Eat chicken!”

So, there you have it. This, of course, got me reminiscing about past Thanksgivings. As a kid, I had a very serious task which I religiously performed the night before the “Big Day.” It was a job requiring exceptional motor skills, good eyesight, and patience. You see, I was the pinfeather plucker. (Remember those things?)

Like a child possessed, I sought out each one — those random left-over plumes that pleaded to be plucked. But I could never get over that one turkey part that contained the mother lode of pinfeathers. The tail! It was such a weird thing. I mean, in the buff like that, it was nothing more than a smallish pink plump pillow of prominent pores. How, I wondered, could something so pliable and pulpy hold all the muscles that raised and spread a turkey’s tail feathers? It was beyond me.

I strongly disliked that bald tail. And I was really, really glad folks didn’t eat it. (And if you do, please do NOT tell me!)

You see, as a child turkey plucker, I had all kinds of thoughts. Besides the tail, there were other turkey parts I did not love. This, naturally, did not include the meat: that in-your-face, sitting-on-the-platter-just-asking — begging! — to-be-consumed delicacy. No, it wasn’t that. What I’m talking about were the personal parts … the heart and the gizzard. Like, come on now, weren’t those vital organs!

Offdah! How awful to eat offal!

And finally there was the mother of all nightmares. The thing that took the grand slam prize for most undesirable turkey part — the neck! For crying out loud, what if the turkey that I was so assiduously plucking was a singer turkey or an orator turkey? I’d be crimping its style for sure. Or how about if it was a lady turkey who loved wearing necklaces? But then, I had to admit, wouldn’t you have tried to gussy up your neck, too, if you had a turkey neck? Whoa! Talk about ugly!

I couldn’t help but puzzle over whether or not a turkey had an Adam’s apple. And was it a sort of sacred thing being named Adam and all? I tell you, plucking time was an exercise in deep, heavy … and guilty … philosophical reflection.

All this aside, there was, albeit, one part of the turkey’s anatomy that I did like. The wish bone. Admittedly, it was pretty gross before it got all cleaned up and dried, but still, it held the promise of a wish coming true! In a family of four children, two of us had to put our wishes on hold every Thanksgiving. And begging Mom to buy two turkeys never worked. Thank goodness for Christmas so the other two kids got a chance.

Funny thing is that after waiting all those months for my turn, I don’t ever remember a single one of my wishes nor if any of them ever came true. Back then I believed with all my heart in the promise of the wishbone. Call me gullible, but I did. Still, in thinking back, I’m now wondering if that wishbone thing was simply an aggressive turkey rancher’s marketing ploy. You know, to get soft-hearted parents to buy turkeys just for their children’s fantasies? Think about it. Did your wishbone wishes ever even once come true? When I won the big half in the wishbone pull, I certainly don’t remember getting a pony! Did you?

One Thanksgiving when I was a teenager, I finished my de-pinfeathering task and when I stood back and looked upon the radiance of that naked bird, I decided to humanize it. So, I propped it in the corner of Mom’s kitchen sink. We happened to have a carving of a man’s head that was exactly proportional to the size of the turkey, so I placed it in the neck cavity, carefully folding up the flaccid turkey skin around the carving’s neck to look like an attractive turtle neck collar.

Then I took both wings and spread the elbows over the edges of the sink as if they were holding a highball and a cigarette. That bird was the spitting image of a naked fat man soaking in a hot tub. I do recall later, however, having a problem eating it. Couldn’t get that fat man image out of my head. Like I had turned cannibal or something.

There is no question that once my de-pinfeathering was finished, the poor thing was so stark naked, I could feel its embarrassment. I shuddered as Mom plopped it in the roasting pan, never quite getting used to that sight. You see, it was one thing to concentrate on only one square inch of turkey skin at a time, but it was another thing to see the full Monty view of the whole bird.

It was beyond disturbing … as if Mom had put one of the young neighbor kids into that pan … and he was now sitting in our kitchen without a stitch of clothes on! Buck naked, like that, it just didn’t seem right.

It’s unsettling, I know.

The turkeys of today come from the store with no pinfeathers. I would suspect that if a young housewife found even one random quill, she’d return it to the store as contaminated goods.

This conjures up the question of just how, today, the feathers are removed? In my mind, I picture two rooms. Room No. 1 is the Tweezer Room. Room No. 2 is the Loofah Room. After the tweezerers are finished, the loofahers take over with their dried gourds defoliating those birds to within an inch of their short lives. And that is precisely why they come to us all pink and glowing. (I believe, but am not certain, that the feathers are shipped off to China. To a sweat shop that makes boas.)

As I grew older, Mom allowed me the coveted task of suturing up the turkey once she had stuffed its cavities full of dressing. In a small way I felt anointed being singled out like that from my siblings, for it was such an awesome responsibility. As I pierced the large darning needle and string through the bird’s rubbery skin, I imagined myself a surgeon. Or marrying one! Or at least living next door to one!

I tried to be decorative with my stitches, even though, much to my disappointment, they were all later ripped out before they could be displayed on the dining room table. I do not recall wearing a white lab coat when I performed this procedure, but let me tell you, I would have loved that!

I had to make certain that the wings were snuggled up next to the turkey’s sides for otherwise they could have begun to flap. This would have been highly distressing as it would have questioned whether or not the bird was dead or alive … and if it might try to escape! Therefore I trussed them tightly so they wouldn’t fly the coop.

That was such a frightful image, that I made sure to also tie up those knobby drum stick ends so they, too, couldn’t take off somewhere. I wondered just what happened to all of those millions of cast-aside turkey feet? Were they also shipped off to China? To a back scratcher factory?

But once I finished embroidering around the neck cavity, it meant that I had to face it. The dreaded other end. Now, this was getting truly personal. I wasn’t quite sure what that gaping hole had once been … or what function it had once performed. Actually, I believe that is when I banned the thought from my over-taxed mind. Still I couldn’t help but feel like a gynecologist — or even, horror beyond horror — a proctologist!

“Hmmm …” I wondered, “do you suppose that Google had it all wrong? That gobble gobble gobble didn’t mean ‘eat chicken,’ but rather … ‘get your cotton pickin’ hands off from down there?’”

Peggy Keener of Austin is the author of “Potato In A Rice Bowl,” which outlines her experiences living in Japan in the 1960s while her husband was in the military. Peggy Keener invites readers to share their memories with her by emailing pggyknr@yahoo.com. Memories shared with Keener may be shared or referenced in subsequent editions of “Full Circle.”