George Killed Ringo - - By By Birdie

As I mentioned in an earlier blogue, I was a huge Beatles fan when I was a kid. I even named my Parakeets after two of the fab four. Ringo was a beautiful green and yellow colour, and had a very friendly disposition. He would fly about the room, circling and swooping, and land on my finger. I could walk around the house with him on my shoulder. George was quite different in every way. He (actually she) was a light blue colour, which is why I named him (her) George... IE Blue Jay Way, and For You Blue. It is difficult for me to imagine George Harrison doing or saying anything malicious. *!%@# George the Parakeet, unlike Mr. Harrison, and his (her) cage companion Ringo, was the nastiest of all things that fly. Instead of standing on my finger, like Ringo, George would bite me. He (she) drew blood from every member of my family... mostly fingers and ears, (fortunately no eyes). One morning, when I was about ten or eleven, I removed the cage cover to find Ringo laying on the bottom of the cage, dead, and there stood George with some of Ringo's feathers in his (her) talons. Mom! I yelled. "George Killed Ringo" I exclaimed as I burst into tears. The cage was situated just outside Mom's bedroom door, and she mentioned that she woke up to some commotion coming from the cage early in the morning. I remember taking Ringo's dead body out of the cage, and scolding George for killing him. I wrapped the body in soft tissue paper, and placed the loosely wrapped mummy into an empty tennis ball can which had previously contained three fuzzy yellow/green balls... ironically the same color as the new feathered occupant. A small procession of children walked two blocks to West Elementary School where, at an undisclosed location, we placed the tennis ball can and its contents into the ground, and said good by to Ringo.