By Glenn Dromgoole

What is your favorite piece of chicken?

Mine has always been the chicken leg, the drumstick.

At one of my favorite buffets that serves exceptional old-fashioned fried chicken – meaning it is cooked in a cast-iron skillet – when I ask for a chicken leg, the server invariably says: “Right or left?”

I laugh. “How about both?”

My record for chicken legs is eleven. I ate that many at a church dinner on the grounds when I was, I think, eleven. 

Glenn as chicken leg eating contestant

It was a contest between me and a boy named Tubby. As you might expect, with a name like Tubby, he had certain gastronomical advantages over a skinny preacher’s kid. He could put away a lot of food.

But, in my corner, was the fried chicken leg champion of our little church. And I wasn’t about to concede my title.

We were tied at eleven chicken legs each when our mothers intervened and put a stop to the contest. 

I’m pretty sure I could have eaten twelve. Or even thirteen.

Back then. Not now.

Glenn Dromgoole and his wife Carol own Texas Star Trading Company in downtown Abilene. He is the author of 35 books, including Just Happy to Be Here and 100 Great Things About Texas.