Thomas MacMillan Photo
Suzanne Love was on her way to gobble a turkey sandwich when she saw something that made her stop in her tracks — a real live turkey strutting across the New Haven Green.
Love, a law student at Yale, said she’s been thinking about becoming a vegetarian. But coming face to face with her lunch ultimately wasn’t enough to make her change her menu plans.
Love (at right in photo) ran into the wild turkey (at left) around 2:30 on Thursday afternoon. She wasn’t the only one to stop and stare. According to one bystander, the turkey had been on the green all day, occasionally wandering into traffic and stopping cars.
Nathaniel Walker was watching the turkey with his sister from a bench near the corner of Chapel and Church streets. He looked on with wonder as the turkey mingled with pigeons nearby, munching on bread crumbs in the grass.
Walker said he’s lived in New Haven all his life and had never seen a turkey on the Green.
“I’d like to see him around Thanksgiving,” he said with a smile.
“Everything’s the food chain,” Celena Walker offered philosophically.
Celena’s statement was borne out moments later when Love walked by and stopped to ponder the turkey.
“There’s a freaking turkey!” she said, after taking a picture and phoning her boyfriend to tell him the news.
Love was surprised not only by the turkey, but by her conflicting response to its presence. “I’m worried for it, but I have turkey in the fridge,” she said, marveling at her contradictory impulses of hunger and protectiveness.
After admiring the turkey for a minute, Love decided to move ahead with her plans for a turkey and avocado sandwich. It would be a test of her readiness for vegetarianism, she said. “I want to see if I can eat it.”
Her encounter with the turkey was a real “moment of truth,” like most moments in her life, Love said.
