Susan Phillips

This is me, driving, and brothers Marty and Mike. And Rex the collie.

Year: circa 1950, a couple of years after this photo was taken. We were free-range kids in Great Falls, Virginia, before it became one more Washington bedroom.

What you can't see is the sprawling dairy farm next door where busloads of city kids from the District would periodically arrive for a field trip to "farm life." Rex and I (and my filthy satin once-lavender comfort blanket) would go and gawp at them, like characters out of our own version of Deliverance.

One fateful day, the bus rolled up and Rex and I found our places, but as the kids tumbled out an interloper arrived: a huge tom turkey flying up in the faces of those stunned kids, setting off what can be succinctly described as bedlam. The bus driver and teacher were helplessly terrified, too, and with no one in charge capable of dealing with the rapidly deteriorating events, it was left to Rex to save the day, assessing the situation and leaping up in one ferocious move to dispatch the turkey right in front of everyone's innocent eyes.

It didn't take long for me and Rex to make our way home after that. The farmer, after hearing about it, called my mother to congratulate Rex for his take-charge work ethic. And I imagine there are still survivors of this day alive, remorselessly telling the story at Thanksgiving turkey dinners of the day one bird fought back.