It reawakened my belief in newspapers. Admittedly I did check the date, just to make sure it was not April 1st, but this was no spoof. There it, was clear as day: Sunday, May 4th; and David Randall's article, published in the London Independent, was a tribute to the heroic spirit. Life can and does endure. Today a small town in the US is honouring one of its fallen sons.
He was a rooster named Mike. Plain ordinary Mike - not Cedric nor Sebastian, but blue collar, honest to God, put it there, Mike. Nothing fancy, no affectation. At the age of only five-and-a-half months he was destined for a swift passage to eternity.
On September 10th 1945, Mike's owner, Farmer Lloyd Olsen, inspired by thoughts of supper, cast his eyes upon Mike. According to Mr Randall's graphic description, he "grabbed [the chicken\] by the neck, reached for his axe, and so he thought, despatched it with one blow. But Mike had other ideas, even though he lacked his head."
Though headless, Mike continued walking about the yard. There are some poignant touches, such as how Mike continued to try pecking for food. Even more moving is the image, frozen in time, of the following morning when Farmer Olsen happened upon the little guy "asleep with his head under his wing".
Not surprisingly, perhaps, the farmer had come to terms with his missing supper and was fascinated by this farmyard Lazarus. And behold, "he got an eye dropper and fed him". The contents of the eye-dropper were not disclosed. I'm not squeamish, but I have to confess to a surge of nausea on thinking of what an eye-dropper held over a severed neck must have looked like. But I read on, already an admirer of Mike.
Here was an ordinary sort of rooster, untouched by ambition. Neither revolutionary nor prophet, he might even have been completely brainless long before becoming headless. Yet he lived on for 18 months, made the covers of Time and Life magazines. He had an agent. He went on tour. And it all began a month after the end of the second World War. Awestruck, I mentioned Miracle Mike to the features editor, who was polite, wary and ultimately sceptical. "You're making this up," she decided. "No, I'm not," I blustered. So for the first time ever, I consulted the Internet.
There it was. Verification. Mike lives, sort of. He has a Website with multiple links covering this weekend's Mike the Headless Chicken festivities in his home town of Fruita, Colorado, the violent attempt on his life, his survival, his subsequent fame, career, nationwide travels, and tragic death by choking in a Phoenix motel room. Various exotic chicken recipes are also included. A biography is available, as are tasteful T-shirts. The website informs us that a an eye-dropped diet of grain and water kept the headless rooster healthy. Olsen also dropped gravel down Mike's neck to ensure that his digestive tract continued functioning.
Within days of being "killed" and surviving, Mike, a Wyandotte chicken, had been sent to the University of Utah for examination. His head travelled separately, in a jar. The professors must have been impressed. Mike had defied death, they explained, because Olsen missed the jugular vein and also left the brain stem.
After surviving the attack Mike went on to make lots of money for that would-be killer, Farmer Olsen, as they toured the States together. There were some hints of scandal: at one point, Mike's original head was eaten by a cat and a rooster head-donor was found, discreetly. Mike also tended to choke on his own mucus, a routine problem for the headless, one imagines. Farmer Olsen used a syringe to suck the mucus out. Late one night, in a Phoenix motel room, Mike began to gag. Olsen reached for the syringe, but realised he had left it where Mike had been appearing earlier that day. Whoops.
So Mike died - for good. If Mike's story had happened in present times, Hello and OK magazines would be battling for the pictures. Mike would be pictured lying in state. Nubile starlets would fling themselves into his grave. There would be a movie, of course. Mike's story would require surreal flair: probably David Lynch or Roman Polanski would get the job; it's simply too complex for Steven Spielberg .
Olsen never admitted to killing his feathered gold-mine and claimed he had sold Mike. There were imitators: other roosters were decapitated in the futile pursuit of fame. One even lived as long as 11 hours, but there was only one Mike.
This weekend's commemorative festival in Fruita, an event inaugurated in 1999, includes a five-kilometre Run Like a Headless Chicken Race, Pin the Head on the Chicken, and the Classic Chicken Dance. The food on offer is mainly - you guessed it - chicken, chicken salad, and the like. It's good to know that Mike's home town is honouring its local hero. As should we all.
Hail to Miracle Mike, an American hero.