2 turkeys, give thanks;
Thanksgiving: annual vegetarian event has live birds as guests
By EDWARD J. BOYER and RICH CONNELL
The turkeys were fashionably late. But this was one Thanksgiving dinner even they could enjoy.
Its sponsors spent nearly 90 minutes Thursday nervously scanning the parking lot at Rancho Park's picnic grounds in West Los Angeles, hoping to catch any sign of the stars of this health-conscious bash. Suddenly, a faint cheer could be heard from across the picnic grounds. It quickly swelled to a roar and sustained applause worthy of matinee idols.
"Drumstick," a year-old tom, and "Fricassee," a 4-year-old Louisiana redbreast hen, had arrived--riding in their crates like sultans in sedan chairs. They were here for the fifth annual "cruelty-free, cholesterol-free" vegetarian Thanksgiving celebration.
Drumstick had been destined for someone's dinner table on Thursday, said Louie Moonfire of Malibu, the bird's vegetarian owner.
"He is a production model that came from a farm with half a million turkeys that were slaughtered last week," Moonfire said. "I picked him out."
As for Fricassee, well, she is a special bird indeed--"the oldest living turkey in captivity," according to Moonfire. "I raised her from an egg."
The birds were immediate hits and were given free run of the picnic, standing calmly for children and adults to pet them and perching on tables where their fans could admire them.
The crowd of nearly 200 vegetarians--who ranged from toddlers to octogenarians--gathered to celebrate the gospel of meatless diets under sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-70s that prompted some to strip down to halter tops or T-shirts.
"This dinner is for vegetarians who don't want to go to their friends', family's or neighbors' homes and see a carcass on the table," saihttp://www.21daydetox.com/rd member of the Vegetarian Society Inc., another sponsor of the event.
Dining with the health-conscious can have its drawbacks, though, as one man carrying a bag of charcoal briquettes under his arm discovered. He spent a quarter of an hour fruitlessly searching for someone with a match to start his fire.
The vegetarians at Los Angeles' Rancho Park embrace a spirit of self-reliance and accepting responsibility, and they said they cannot condone what they see as the ultimate cruelty to animals: eating them.
One woman wore a T-shirt with the lengthy message: "Sad, but true. A meat-centered diet damages health, promotes cruelty to animals, wastes natural resources, pollutes the environment, contributes to world hunger. A plant-based diet provides your family with all the nutrition it requires."
A man who identified himself only as Jingles, "an animal freedom fighter," spread his animal rights buttons, T-shirts, bumper stickers and other wares on a blanket. "Heart attacks: God's Revenge for Eating His Animal Friends," read one of his signs.
"Animal flesh is obtained through violent means," said Marr Nealon, an actress who chairs EarthSave L.A., one of three groups sponsoring the vegetarian picnic. "When one eats what was obtained in a violent way, one tends to project that."
