THE MYSTERY OF THE CHICKEN FARMER

A recent newspaper article in the VALLEY NEWS prompted me to list this topic here....The 'CHICKEN FARMER' MYSTERY is not a ghost story or a murder mystery but more of a haunting, intriguing LOVE STORY....that has fascinated most people who travel through Newbury,New Hampshire, along the road from the Interstate and the Capital of Concord.... On the side of the road on some rocks cut out of the banks along the road, is the statement or declaration that says,'CHICKEN FARMER I STILL LOVE YOU' although originally, as the article points out, it once read simply,'CHICKEN FARMER I LOVE YOU' and the story of the change in wordings will be discussed later but can clear up why for those who saw, as I once did, why the word 'still' is not on the saying, which has been a bit controversial at times. Although the 'graffiti' has been there since the 1970's, I seem to think it really belongs to an earlier era.....and the identity of the persons : the one who wrote the words and the one who is the object of affections remains, for teh most part, a local mystery, although some claim to know the persons' identities and others speculate..... There was a chicken farmer, who lived in the area back in perhaps the 30's or so and others in the area, including a young lady, raised chickens also nearby the rocks.... But I wish to call attention to the term 'chicken farmer' which was once considered a most lowly and poor occupation for many, even contemptible, since
hen manure' etc. is not a very pleasant by-product of hens and chickens,etc.... Yet, eggs are and seem to have always been, an important part of the 'American Diet' and food chain as well as important in baking,etc......leaving that topic aside, there was the famous novel: THE EGG & I which was made into a movie starring Fred Macmurray and Claudette Colbert, which also introduced the characters of MA & PA KETTLE played by Majorie Main and Percy Kilbride.........and the spinoff movies of which Pa was notoriously lazy and conniving,etc. So, if one was a lowly chicken farmer, the girl or man, whoever it was, loved loved the farmer....the mystery is whether the farmer was a girl or a man and vice versa for the lover......many assume the it is a man while others tend to favor a woman who, perhaps, realized too late that she loved him,etc.....