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Snapping turtles and Mynah birds
Today my brother Ray is a retired Superintendent of Schools, a widower who
continues to indulge his lifelong love of birds and other pets, and
continues to share his skills at gourmet cooking with favored guests from
time to time. A visit to his home is a gastronomic treat. In the Spring of
1960 he was an impecunious college student between school terms. It was too
early to head for his summer job as the breakfast chef at the Ahwahnee
Hotel in Yosemite, and he badly needed to stretch his funds. I was working
for an East Bay weekly newspaper, engaged to be married, but still living
in my bachelor apartment in Walnut Creek as the tenant of Mr. and Mrs. Levi
Parker Million. The two were elderly, retired chicken ranchers, and a
couple of the nicest people I've ever known. Florence was the first white
child born in Cripple Creek, Colorado, in the early days of that famous
mining settlement.
Ray suggested I allow him to crash for a couple of months, with menagerie.
He'd replace my bachelor amateur cooking "skills" with his professional
services while he was there. It was a win-win situation for me, and he
charmed the Millions, so Sam the Mynah bird, the snapping turtle, and the
rest of the pet parade were welcomed to my (euphemistically entitled)
"garden apartment" for a few Spring months.
The snapping turtle graciously accepted a diet heavy on the local
pollywogs. I did my best to make sure he didn't get a chance to add my
fingers to his diet. The identity of most of the other pets has been lost
in the mists of time.
Sam chattered away daily. He had my brother's cigarette cough down pat. He
could not only talk interminably, he would precisely echo any sound he'd
ever heard, including the high-pitched metallic clang of outdoor
clothesline pulleys. Talents like that can be either charming or very
annoying, depending on the circumstance. Since I knew Sam's tenancy was a
matter of only a few months, I allowed myself to be charmed.
One particular day I was shaving. The bathroom door was open, and I said
something to Ray. He responded. The two of us continued the conversation,
back and forth, for several minutes. It was an interesting, seemingly
intelligent conversation. Then I exited the bathroom, but Ray was nowhere
to be seen. I felt rather foolish. It's one thing to say "Pretty bird" or
"Polly want a cracker?" or some mild obscenity, but I'd been carrying on a
perfectly valid dialogue with a creature a little dumber than a crow or a
starling, and not nearly as smart as most parrots.
Sam lived 15 years, and might still be around if a raccoon hadn't come
around and killed him one unlucky day.
Ray has since indulged his love of feathered creatures with a variety of
parrots, conures and cockatoos, a few finches, even some award-winning
chickens and a canary or two. He once received (as a gift from the San
Diego Zoo) a pair of wild jungle fowl, Gallus gallus, after he'd impressed
the zoo staff with his avian knowledge. That gift turned out to have
drawbacks, including an unscheduled five a.m. departure from a San Diego
motel when the rooster decided to loudly serenade the sunrise.
Ray would have taken it in stride, but he was visiting the area with our
parents, and my mother was quite embarrassed when the rooster sounded off
so loudly, so clearly, and so early.
Paul Azevedo's e mail address is Paul@thereactor.net
Check The Reactor's website at www.thereactor.net.
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