When we were around 12 or 13, our Great Uncle Floyd gave us his parakeet named Jerry. He was blue with other neat colors and was a welcome addition to our present ongoing menagerie of dogs, cats, rabbits, skunks, horses, etc. Like most, if not all, parakeets, there was an additional clip that had to be attached to his cage door because he would pick the regular door latch and execute daring escapes. More often than not, we would forget to attach the extra clip, and Jerry would escape. As he flew, it made a fluttering sound much like a pigeon, only softer. One of the neatest things about Jerry was that we used to keep him in the kitchen right above and beside the radio which was always on 1100 KYC from Cleveland, at least when we were around. (We old-timer Baby Boomers remember that station). We always had it on where ever we were, to listen to all the top music (e.g. “Please Don’t Talk to the Lifeguard”, Alley Oop”, etc.). One day we heard faint sounds of a radio announcer so we thought we left the radio on at low volume. The radio was off, and we found the “radio announcer” noise coming from Jerry!!! We always thought only parrots could “talk”! From then on, every now and then Jerry would start “announcing” in a low AM radio tone! Too bad he never mimicked any of the hit songs! We were pleasantly surprised since we thought only parrots could “talk”! Another thing the “Amazing Jerry” did was lay an egg! One of us discovered the small white egg on the floor of his birdcage one morning! We put it on the window ledge and showed it to everyone that visited. It meant its demise when a young Tom M. picked it up and said, “What’s this?” and squeezed it. Oh well! We never did change the spelling of Jerry to Jerri since “he was a she”, but as kids we never “sweated the details.” Another “neat” thing that Jerry(i) did was to perch on the edge of our cereal bowl and we would both eat. When we were finished eating, we would have Jerry get on our finger and open our mouth wide and (she) would put her head in our mouth and pick out the food stuck in our teeth, kind of like a Fred Flintstone toothpick! Our mother always warned us not to do that because we could get “Parrot Fever”. Again, we never “sweated the small stuff” and were completely oblivious to the possibility of getting “Parrot Fever”. Besides, Jerry wasn’t a parrot so we rationalized we were in no danger anyway. In addition, we had never contracted cat, dog, skunk, horse, cattle, or rabbit “fevers” either. Therefore, we knew we had “kid invincibility” to ANY “Fever” or disease! We later moved Jerry up to our room and hung his birdcage on the wall between our beds. We would let him out (if he hadn’t already “broke jail”) and he would fly around our room, perching on various spots. One of his favorite perching spots was on our windowsill where we had a small model of a canoe, which was made from tree bark. Eventually, Jerry had gnawed most of it up. Most every night we could hear the gnawing sounds. Eventually, Jerry met his demise when he flew outside through an open door. He had done this once before and I remember Tim chasing him down the field until he finally caught him due to the fact that Jerry was so out of shape. Whenever he’d fly around the room for even a short time, he (errr... she) would be rapidly breathing from lack of exercise (a lot like my condition now). Like practically all of our past pets, Jerry met an untimely “freak” end. Somehow a door was closed on his beak, and broke both of them off! Since Jerry couldn’t eat, we had to euthanize him! It didn’t cost us a thing because there were no “bills” on Jerry! At least we still have good memories of Jerry…