I suppose the lives of most Boomers can be measured with the pets we owned, and we had some doozies. As Easter approaches, I recall getting baby chickens and baby ducks – dyed in pastel colors – in our Easter baskets. It was a right of passage and there was no such thing as PETA in those days. We just had pet birds for a spell.
With ducks, when they lost their dyed colors and the cute factor, it was usually a trip to a farmer acquaintance with a pond or to a local park where they were released and did just fine.
With baby chicks, we had a neighbor who was quite fond of 8 week old chickens. Fryers, she called them. She eagerly invited our young chickens to a Sunday dinner. We dropped them off and it was don’t ask, don’t tell.
I recall one Easter I got a little green duck, which went missing on about the third day. We searched high and low, under furniture and beds, but never could find the thing. I guess he slipped out when one of the kids came in.
Another interesting “pet”, if you can call it that, was a small turtle, or likely a tortoise. The tiny reptiles, about the size of a silver dollar, had interesting colorations on their shells, top and bottom. I asked for one once for my birthday, and got it. The turtle and I stared at each other for a minute or two, then went our separate ways. Turtles weren’t much fun to play with.
I also had a three-legged dog. It actually had four legs, but the left hind leg didn’t work. But “Nicky” ran quite nicely on three legs, thank you very much.
Nicky was a small dog. My Aunt Topsy who surprised my parents with this gift to me, said it was a cross between a chihawa and a toy terrier. Perhaps, perhaps not. It was just a little dog without much fur who shivered and barked all the time.
Nicky was a decent watchdog. She could hear the milk man coming at dawn and woke everyone in the house. She lived with us about 10 years. Dogs die too soon, you know.
I also had a parakeet. We were at Atlantic Beach, NC on vacation at Aunt Ann’s cottage when I saw an extremely colorful bird land on her clothes line. I went out to investigate, the bird saw me coming and flew and lit directly on my shoulder. I took him inside and soon had a cage and a new pet. We named him Tramp, a very friendly little parakeet. If you held your hands together under a running kitchen faucett, Tramp would fly down and a take a bath in the makeshift tub. He also spoke quite fluently, but in “parakeet”, not in human language.
Pets were certainly important parts of our lives. Still are.
