Fast Food From Slow Chickens Mystery Cache

This cache has been archived.

The Macho Homemaker: I checked on this one last weekend and found the container was in really bad shape.

Since it would be next to impossible to replace, I decided to archive this cache.

Thanks to all who came to find it.

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Hidden : 1/31/2015
Difficulty:
1.5 out of 5
Terrain:
2 out of 5

Size: Size: small (small)

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Geocache Description:

I got the idea from mis-reading the name of a cache while driving...

The geocache is NOT at the posted coordinates, but you can find some slow chickens there...

The Ballad of Lt. Flinders


Lieutenant FlindersON a cold spring morning (April First, to be exact) of the Year of Our Lord 1875, in the little town of Possum Trot, Indiana, a child was born to Elvira and Melvin Flinders. Not much was noted of the baby boy at the time as he was, (1) perfectly normal in every way and, (2) the thirteenth child born to the family.

Ma Flinders took a few minutes to catch her breath and then went back out to finish with the cows, whose milking had been interrupted. Poor little George waited out the hour or so that it took anyone to notice that a new baby had arrived, when his third-to-the-eldest sister came in to change the sheets.

The soft thump of his head against the rag rug beside the bed was the first real pain of his life. His sister paused at her task and sorted through the sheets on the floor until she found the source of the hellacious noise.
“Not another one!” She said, disgustedly.

It was to be the story of his life.

George grew up tending chickens at the family farm, there being no other more useful work since all of his older siblings had dibs.  He figured that if he had to be a chicken herder, he would be the best chicken herder he could be…which was a very good thing because it was the only thing was ever good at.

As he grew into his teen years, he realized that there was no place for him at the family farm. With five brothers and seven sisters, his share of the family farm amounted to the chicken coop and yard, which no one else wanted. On his sixteenth birthday, Young George sold his interest in the farm for $14 and left to make his way in the world.

George spent the next few years coming up with novel ideas with which to squander his meager wealth (mostly gained from working on chicken ranches) until he finally ran aground in the year 1898. With no other options left to him, George joined the army at the age of 23 and shipped out to Cuba. He arrived in Havana a day after the end of the Spanish-American War and thus missed out on any chance for success as a soldier. His stay in Cuba was uneventful…save for one incident on the Twelfth of August, 1899.

One afternoon, Cpl. Flinders was delivering a live chicken to the mess for the captain’s dinner when he tripped over a stone just as the captain stepped out of his office. George lost control of the bird as he fell and it struck the captain square in his chest. Reflexively, the captain clutched the chicken to him and drew in a great breath to berate the hapless enlisted man who had assaulted him with this fowl package. Remarkably, this did not spell the end of the corporal’s career as at that moment, a shot rang out from the hills. The captain grunted and fell, still holding the suddenly deceased chicken.  After determining that he was unhurt, Cpl. Flinders helped the captain to his feet.

The captain was amazed that Cpl. Flinders had the prescience to detect the danger and the initiative to use whatever was at hand to protect his captain from the sniper. In reward for his actions, Cpl. Flinders was awarded a field commission to lieutenant and given a prize of $5,000.00, paid out of the captain’s private funds. The chicken was awarded the Bronze Star.

The next morning, wearing his shiny new lieutenant’s bars, Lt. Flinders was notified that the captain had choked to death the night before on a chicken bone and that his new commanding officer did not wish to retain his services, due to his belief that Lt. Flinders was bad luck. George was given his discharge papers and put on a boat to Miami the following afternoon. During the crossing, George noticed a strange chicken aboard and immediately had an idea. He paid the chicken’s owner $5.00 and took possession of the four-legged rooster.

Flush with cash, Lt. Flinders returned north to Indiana, where he found an old chicken ranch near the town of Greenwood (a much better neighborhood than Possum Trot) and embarked on an ambitious program of breeding his pet with the intent to provide extra drumsticks for everyone.

His project was successful beyond his wildest dreams. Within three years, George had a population of over 30,000 four-legged chickens and investors were banging on his door.
Then came the fateful day: March 18, 1902. With his major investors watching, George walked into the pen with a bag and attempted his first harvest of his marvelous birds. It was at this moment he learned two things: (1) the chickens apparently did not only have an enhanced number of legs…they also possessed a greater than average intelligence. And (2) a four-legged chicken is able to run much more than twice as fast as the two-legged variety.

His investors stared in horror as one after another of the chickens escaped not only the bag but the pen as well. To make matters worse, all of the other chickens on the farm realized their danger and made their escape. George, his farm hand (a young man who lived next door), and his investors stared dumb-founded at the empty pens, the floating feathers, and the chicken derrières disappearing over the hill in a cloud of fine Indiana clay.

It was at this point that his young farm hand said, “Mr. Flinders, I think if I were raising chickens for the pot, I would have tried to breed slow ones.”
In a fit of ire, George told him, “Go home, Harland. You’re fired.”

Things went downhill from there. His farm was seized to pay off the investors (for about 5 cents on the dollar). He was sued by his neighbors because of the damage the chickens were doing to their crops (they couldn’t catch them either) and had to use his remaining funds to mollify them. To make matters worse, a large number of the birds returned to him. He was often seen with a flock following him around as he walked to and from his cheap row-house in town. So long as he didn’t attempt to catch them, they stayed by him…a constant and dreadful reminder of his failure.

At his wits end, he finally took the advice of his physician and boarded a train for California, leaving his chickens behind. Once there, Lt. Flinders settled in Los Angeles and took up writing horror novels mostly themed around barnyard animals. His sales were sufficient to support him in the way he had always wanted. Added to this were reports from back home that the chickens did not breed true without the careful selection Lt. Flinders had provided and that the numbers of four-legged birds were declining rapidly. For twenty years he waited for the report that finally arrived: the last creature known to exist had disappeared in a particularly harsh winter and George made November 6, 1922, the date of the last confirmed sighting, a personal holiday.

It was as if the almighty had allowed this contented state only to enhance the effect of what followed.

Riding the Train“Mr. Flinders!” his 11-year-old neighbor yelled to him across the fence.
“Yes, Charles?” George answered from his porch where he was writing the next installment of his serialized novel about vampire sheep.
“You won’t believe the picture in the morning paper!” He said, laughing. “Someone got a picture of a chicken riding a train into the depot downtown. It had four legs!”
A dread chill fell over the lieutenant. “Show me!” he demanded. Charles came over the rail fence and handed over the paper.
On the front page of the March 21, 1925 issure of the L.A. Times was an image, albeit not very clear, of a passenger train coming into the station. On the third car was undeniably a chicken…with four legs. Something snapped with poor Lt. Flinders’ mind at that moment. Staring off into the horizon, he handed the paper back to Charles and went inside without a word. Charles stared after him for a moment, shrugged, and went back over the fence.

Late that night Charles was awakened by a clatter coming from next door. He looked down from his upstairs window to see his neighbor working in his yard by lamplight, sawing, drilling, and hammering furiously. He fell asleep watching Lt. Flinders build the most nonsensical contraption outside of a Rube Goldberg cartoon.

In the morning after breakfast, Charles went across the fence and stared in wonder at the contraption. It was a mess of spars, struts, hinges, springs, rails, weights, and heavy wooden balls. The focus appeared to be a simple box trap baited with popcorn. Nearby sat Lt. Flinders, staring at the street, bleary-eyed and mute.
“Mr. Flinders?” Charles asked, “Are you all right?”
Moving only his lips, George answered him. “He’s coming here, the devil. Coming to torment me again. I shall catch him and eat him and that will end it for all eternity…”
“Who’s coming?” Charles asked him, now more than a little disturbed.
“The rooster.”
“Rooster?”
“The evil creature in the picture. The abomination which I, myself, created. Worse even than Madame Shelley’s stories…or mine.”
“It was just a chicken, Mr. Flinders…”
“You know nothing! It is evil. Evil I say!”
“Charles!” He heard his mother say, “come away from there! Leave Mr. Flinders alone.”
“I have to go. I’ll see you around.” Charles left, worriedly looking over his shoulder.

Later that afternoon, while Charles and his sister were drawing at the kitchen table, he heard a strange noise coming from the yard next door. He looked out the window to see that the machine had started moving. Mesmerized, he watched the machine move through its steps, pulleys and ropes, rolling balls and tipping levers, springs and cogs, working in sequence, bearing down on the red four-legged rooster who was casually pecking at the corn on the tray. Looking out his window at the scene, wild-eyed and grinning dementedly, was Lt. Flinders.

At the very last step, the Lieutenant leaned out the window expectantly and the cage came down with a clang. Unfortunately, the rooster had taken the very last kernel and sped off at that very instant. The cage contained only a single russet feather.
“Noooooo!” George howled in rage. “It was foolproof! This is impossible!” He disappeared from the window and, from the sound of things, was breaking everything he could get his hands on.

Charles and his sister stared at each other, wide-eyed, closed the window, and drew the curtains.

In the following weeks, Lt. Flinders became progressively more deranged. Setting traps throughout the neighborhood, chasing the rooster with a net whenever he sighted it, and placing personal ads for big game hunters promising a large reward for the head (and legs) of the bird. As time passed, more inventive and complicated traps were conceived and built, all ending in failure (and no small amount of personal injury to the lieutenant). The newspapers chronicled the increasingly wild attempts and one even started a “Flinders Watch” column which solicited letters from citizens who witnessed the escapades of the notorious lieutenant.

Eventually, the town fathers decided enough was enough. After nearly electrocuting himself climbing a pole after the rooster and starting a fire in a downtown department store, Lieutenant George Flinders was committed to a sanitarium. The rooster was adopted by a famous actress and was often seen wearing a diamond collar and being carried along the red carpet to her premieres. After several years of pampered life, the rooster died of natural causes.

The news of the death of the rooster eased the mind of the lieutenant in no small fashion. He applied for, and was granted, his release from the sanitarium provided he returned to his native Indiana under the guardianship of his third-from-the-oldest sister (the one who had carelessly dumped him on the floor the day of his birth). He accepted, and on the afternoon of April 28th, 1927, boarded a train for Possum Trot, Indiana.

Lt. Flinders spent his days tending perfectly normal chickens on the family farm and writing children’s books, once again content.

Unfortunately for George, it would not last. On September, 19, 1949, George went to the movies with his sister. He had heard from his old neighbor Charles that there was a cartoon before the feature that he had to see. Curious, he decided to check it out. It was a grave error. He woke in the hospital.
“What happened, George?” his sister asked him. “Halfway through the cartoon, you fainted. I couldn’t arouse you.”
“How could he?” George whispered. “How could he mock me so?”
“Who?”
“Charles. Or, perhaps I should say ‘Chuck’.”
“Your friend from L.A.?”
“He is no friend.” George spat. “No friend of mine would ridicule me so. No friend would make a comedy out of my failures!”
The next day he received a telegram from Charles. It asked him if he liked the cartoon. George replied with a package.

Three weeks later he was once again admitted to the sanitarium.
“George,” his sister said, “you just can't send famous Hollywood directors an exploding box of fresh chicken manure.”
“He asked my opinion. I gave it to him. Some people just can’t handle critics.”

Lt. Flinders spent the remainder of his days sitting in the sanitarium, doing nothing at all. Until the fateful day of July 14, 1952, when Lt. Flinders was found in his chair, clutching a letter. The letter was from a former employee who was happily announcing the first franchise restaurant featuring what the letter writer called his ‘slow chickens’. It was signed “With affection and appreciation, Colonel Harland Sanders”.

Lieutenant George C. Flinders was laid to rest in a small cemetery near the now deserted town of Possum Trot. It is said that, on certain days in springtime, you can see strange chickens sitting on his tombstone, paying homage.

Rest in Peace

You may find the cache at: N aa° bb.ccc', W yy° zz.zzz'
aa = Money gained from sale of his chicken coop, times 3.
bb = Day of month he went to see "Fast and Furry-ous", times 2.
ccc = Days from last sighting in Indiana to the first sighting in California.
yy = Sum of digit pairs of day/year of death (dd+y1y2+y3y4).
zz.zzz = Number of days from bankruptcy to death.
 

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Fbzr fznyy uryc znl or sbhaq urer: uggc://jjj.gvzrnaqqngr.pbz/qngr/

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)


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