The 317 Project tells stories of life in all of Indianapolis’ vibrant neighborhoods – 317 words at a time.
Traffic roared down West Minnesota Street on a chilly January afternoon in Drexel Gardens. There to watch it roll by was a 6-foot-tall rooster gleaming in the sunlight.
“My granddaughter calls it ‘the chicken’,” said Debra Hancock, describing the metal bird keeping watch outside her house. It has plenty of companions. Windchimes, planters and a ‘Welcome’ sign are decorated with roosters.
“I just like roosters,” smiled the 69-year-old in a poultry-themed purple hoodie. They’ve been a familiar presence to her since childhood.
Debra’s lived in Drexel Gardens all her life. The neighborhood has changed a lot.
Her parents’ home was demolished to make way for the interstate during its construction in the 1960s. She and her husband of nearly 49 years reside in a modest beige-sided house once owned by Debra’s aunt.
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The landscape changed too. Across the road, the view from their living room used to be a grove of tall shady trees. Now it’s a parking lot for semi-trucks. The unwelcome noise makes ‘Navajo’, their Australian shepherd, bark. Other than that, Debra likes her neighborhood.
And roosters.
When little, she traveled every summer to her grandmother’s house in Arkansas. There chickens roamed freely, and her family pitched in helping to prepare them for mealtimes. Debra’s responsibility was to pluck feathers, a job she hated, but the trips were fun.
Running on country dirt roads. Cousins laughing. A yard teeming with clucking white birds – all vivid memories.
Upon retiring, Debra and Billy Hancock have no plans of installing a chicken coop. It would make traveling difficult. But rooster figure collecting remains on the agenda. Perhaps because it’s fun. Perhaps because, as the world changes, our treasured possessions don’t. They’re familiar, comfortable reminders of who we are, or were. Or what we like, or where we want to be.
That place for Debra Hancock is in Drexel Gardens, where giant metal roosters roam.