Stephenson Tales
Other Beasties - Birds and Dogs
Parakeets
In Highland Park we had a beautiful blue parakeet that had the run (flight) of our third floor apartment across from the high school so Second Avenue. (Lucky was wee and learning to talk. I made an hour of her early speech, only to have Bob Perego steal the tape when we moved to Kansas later.) The bird loved to dive into the shower with us, then fly into the living room, perch on the Murphy bed and shake himself dry.
After that we had a whole series of parakeets, couples and singles. Robin was given four parakeets, 2 males and 2 females, and naturally became interested in breeding them. The birds were supplied with nesting boxes and in fairly short order we were overrun with parakeets. Eventually I put up a breeding house behind a clear plastic wall on the sun porch at Knoll Road where they would nest and breed. That went on for a couple of years until Robin wearied of the constant cleaning it involved. She found homes for all of the birds among her friends, neighbors, and classmates.
Saddle and Jason
When we lived at 2101 while I was working on my PhD, in about 1950 -53, we had a beautiful pair of black and white labs of dubious heritage. Nothing in particular happened with these two dogs. Their names were Saddle and Jason. They were black and white longhaired mix and very gentle, loving, and not very bright. I do not remember what finally happened to them.
Lucky's note: Jason and Saddle were at 2101 when I was very little. Jason died first. There are pictures of me with Saddle when I was not much taller than he was. Saddle occasionally took the role of a horse or cattle when Micky, John, Alan and I played Sunset and Belinda, which was our version of cowboys and Indians. Grandmother made it very clear, however, that just because Saddle had a perfectly marked saddle on his back did NOT mean that we were allowed to ride him!
Composed 25 October 2008; Transcribed by Lucky