Gobblers on the hoof overrun Bettendorf

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| Monday, September 22, 2008 |

OFFBEAT moments on one of those days … It was a beautiful morning on the first day of autumn and the wild turkeys were out, pecking and gobbling and doing all the things that turkeys do. But right in the fair city of Bettendorf?

“I think that Mayor Mike Freemire should put up a ‘Turkey Crossing’ sign in our neighborhood,” says Bob Border, who lives in the 6600 block of Crow Creek Road.

“There are at least three wild turkeys around our homes. When you stop to let them cross the road, they won’t move. They’ll peck at the hubcaps of the car.”

They won’t eat out of the hand, but the birds follow Border around the yard when he carries treats for them — a can of sunflower seeds.

Tweet memories

“Why don’t you get a real job? Quit pestering me,” Mert Hartsock, a one-time police sergeant used to rail at me for constantly phoning him to ask, “Is anything doing?”

His widow, Shirley, sends a yellowed story I once wrote. Cops were stationed at every corner when Davenport had a real downtown. One day, while directing traffic at Brady and Second streets, Mert swung his traffic whistle around his finger. It flew off, cord and all, down a sewer. Traffic stopped while a half-dozen men — many in business suits — lifted off the heavy sewer cover. Someone came out of the dime store with a coat hangar for Mert — flat on the street — to extract his whistle. He did so without soiling his uniform. After writing about that bit, Mert scolded me again, “Why don’t you get a real job?”

Tying one on

I told Dr. Jim Johnston of Rock Island how dapper he looked in his bow tie, and how I am aficionado of bows.

“My wife, Joyce, makes them for me,” he said. Now, in the mail comes a package of bow ties, all made by his wife. Classy-looking ones. Even one of camouflage silk.

“The camo one is from my days in the military,” he says.

Life’s little coincidences

The attractive woman came up during a Davenport High School class reunion (not mine) and asked:

“I’m Evie; do you remember me?”

I didn’t remember. She mentioned quail’s eggs at high tea.

Yes, indeed, it was Evie Teegen. The last time our paths crossed was 1992 when she was U.S. ambassador to Fiji. We were traipsing around the South Pacific with one of those “I’m With Bill” gangs. An appointment had been made for the whole traveling band to visit her for high tea at the ambassador’s grand home in Suva.

Evie Teegen is from the Hoopes family of Muscatine. Her husband, Dick Teegen, is the Davenport High grad.

She served as ambassador under the elder President Bush. Always big in GOP politics, she came to know the president when dancing with him at a party. Evie and Dick now live in Backus, Minn.

Pass the baby, please

Mildred Greer, Davenport, who is going on 99, a mother of six taps a thin finger to her forehead and says, “My goodness, I can’t say how many grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren I have.”

It was time for a five-generation reunion and to pass around the newest of her clan, 8-week-old Sydney Kurzawski of Barrington, Ill. — from mom, Nicole, to family members who make up the five generations — Catherine Keady of Barrington, and Ada Streit, Naples, Fla.

Bill Wundram can be contacted at (563) 383-2249 or bwundram@qctimes.com.