Lompoc Online received the following
email from Tony Keats:
There
is a band in Nashville called Spike
and Mallets. Several years ago the singer, Jeff Keeran, lived
in Oakland, CA.
He
read an article about a fifth grade class who had, as a science
project, cultivated an egg and raised a chicken as their pet.
One morning the class took the chicken, whom they named Peep jr.,
out at recess and a hawk swooped down and grabbed Peep jr, carried
him up to a flag poll and ate him right in front of the fifth
graders. The headline in the paper read, "Fifth Graders Learn
Ghastly Life Lesson."
At
any rate, the new Spike and Mallets record is titled Peep Jr.
and it has enjoyed moderate success here in the Nashville area.
After some research I found your town was the actual place where
it happened! I thought it would make a great story in Lompoc Online.
If anything you must go to spikeandmallets.com
and check out the song. You can hear if free and after all.......it's
a story about your town! If you know of any other facts about
this story I would love to hear them.
Respectfully
submitted,
Tony Keats.
EDITOR'S
NOTE: Yes Tony, this would be a good
story for Lompoc Online, if it actually happened in Lompoc. But
as the guitarist for Spike and Mallets, you are surely aware that
your band's website says the incident occurred at Fult Elementary
School in Pleasanton, CA, and sites a newspaper article as evidence!
But since
Lompoc is a music-loving town, and I'm in a forgiving mood, we've
gone ahead and linked to the Spike and Mallets website where folks
can listen to "The Balled of Peep Jr." to their heart's content.
(Apparantly
the Spike and Mallets tune, "I Got Some", enjoyed a ten-week showing
on the MP3.com Top 40 Alternative Chart, so you alternative music
fans out there just might want to check it out at http://www.spikeandmallets.com/home.htm).
TONY
KEATS RESPONDS: fyi- article on web site was fabricated in
photo shop. We could not find the original one. Since he read
the original in Oakland we assumed it happened there. I just recently
discovered it was Lompoc. Your site is great, thanks for the posting!
EDITOR'S
NOTE: Well, now I do wonder, did it happen here? If anyone
out there knows, please email
Lompoc Online.
THANKS
TO THOMAS ADAMS FOR HIS RECOLLECTION OF THE EVENT: If memory
serves me correctly, an incident similar to that happened at either
Los Berros or Buena Vista about 12-15 years ago. I remember reading
the story in the Lompoc Record. The only difference is that it
was a rabbit. I guess "chicken" sounded funnier.
THANKS
TO rmchaas@pacbell.net FOR THIS "VERSION": Actually, it happened
just a few miles north at Arroyo Grande Highschool and it was
not a Rabbit or Chicken but just a plain ole kitten. It was not
a hawk that swept down and ate the poor creature on the top of
the flag pole, but a yellow pinto that crushed it in the school
parking-lot. It was not the whole class that witnessed it but
three boys who had just returned from a feild trip and a cheerleader
who was retrieving her homework from her car.
