LISBON — The town turkey has apparently flown the coop.
The trail of the painted metal cutout depicting a 3-foot-tall turkey has gone cold, said Cherie Garnett, who works for the town’s Parks and Recreation Department.
Garnet said the bird was nowhere to be found by town workers when they retrieved the display items last fall for the town’s annual Thanksgiving tableau at the Route 196 and School Street. The pilgrim couple and a cornucopia were still there, but no turkey.
Garnett, among others, suspected fowl play.
“I think that probably the year before, some kids — you know how kids are — on some prank they decided they were going to get their own Thanksgiving decorations, maybe, and put it in their backyard or something,” Garnett told the Sun Journal in November for a story about the disappearance.
Shortly before Christmas, a reporter checked back with Garnett to see whether the turkey had turned up since then.
“I was hoping I’d be able to call you and tell you it had,” she said. “But, no, it hasn’t shown up.”
Garnet said the town was offering amnesty to the thief for return of the burgled bird.
“If somebody just returns it to the (parks and recreation center) no questions asked, we’ll just take it back,” she said.
But that appears unlikely.
Garnett said it may be time to start investigating options for a replacement before Thanksgiving next year.
The late Paul Chizmar fashioned the original turkey from sheet metal a decade ago, she said, so a new fabricator would be needed. The town could seek to recruit local artist Linda Gamrat, who painted the original turkey — as well as the pilgrims — to reprise that role.
“We probably should look into it,” she said.
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Lisbon’s Thanksgiving tableau at the corner of Route 196 and School Street originally included a painted metal cutout depicting a 3-foot-tall turkey where Faye Brown stands in this Sun Journal file photo from November where she hoped to find the turkey that went missing from the Thanksgiving display in the center of Lisbon Falls. (Sun Journal file photo by Daryn Slover)
Lisbon’s Thanksgiving tableau at the corner of Route 196 and School Street originally included a painted metal cutout depicting a 3-foot-tall turkey. In this November photo, Faye Brown stands where she hoped to find the turkey that went missing from the Thanksgiving display in the center of Lisbon Falls. (Sun Journal file photo by Daryn Slover)
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