Pete the Parakeet
Closeup photo was taken by me through a magnifying glass.
Pete was on the counter by the kitchen sink.
My brother David was an avid baseball player and spent many afternoons and weekends playing pickup basketball games at the Littlewood Elementary School outdoor basketball courts. It was one such day during the Christmas break of 1967 when he found Pete. David tells the story:
Playing a half-court game of "make it take it" with 4 players on a team, a blue parakeet was noticed that had flown onto the top of the 8-foot chain link fence that was between the courts and 8th Avenue. About to resume play, astonishingly the parakeet flew down and landed on Krill's shoulder. (I have never known just who Krill was, just a guy on the court that day.) While Krill took the basketball shot, the parakeet stayed put on his shoulder. Asking Krill if he wanted the parakeet and hearing his no reply, I put my hand up to his shoulder and the bird walked onto my hand, up my arm and then perched onto my shoulder! Leaving the guys in the middle of their game, I got on my bicycle and proceeded to ride home with my new pet.
Reaching the "double street"[1] a car went closely by and the parakeet flew off my shoulder and landed on a telephone wire in the median between the two streets. Trying to coax the bird back down to my shoulder, I was soon joined by Timmy Yawn and his younger friend on their bicycles. Telling them about "my bird" the parakeet unexpectedly flew down and tried to land on Timmy's friend’s shoulder which he was totally unprepared for and freaked out. (Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" had just been on TV and it was like the scene in the movie.) The blue parakeet then flew into a low shrub where I was then able to get the parakeet back on my shoulder and proceeded to ride home without any further incidents.
Possibly because of name alliteration or perhaps that my Uncle Cork once had a parakeet named Pete, the name Pete was chosen.
[1] The double street is what we called NW 36 Street as it was two lanes with a grassy median in the middle while all the other streets in the neighborhood were single lane.
Pete’s
cage hanging outside on the back of the garage
Pete’s cage had a mirror (red) that he liked immensely, a white oval cuttlefish shell that that parakeets chew on to calcium dietary supplements and had to be replaced periodically, a ladder, a green and red Ferris wheel on the bottom of the cage, seed and water cups, a small edible seed bell that he ate, and a sandpaper bottom that David and I would replace when we cleaned his cage.
Most of the time Pete’s cage hung on the front porch which was enclosed but had Jalousie windows on three sides which was drafty so on cold winter days we would move Pete’s cage into the living room. On really cold days a towel was draped over the cage at night to provide Pete additional warmth. In good weather we would take Pete in his cage outside and hang it from a bracket that Dad had attached to the back of the garage. Pete seem to really like being outside.
Pete flew the coop once. As David was leaving the house through the back kitchen door, he heard the sound of Pete's wings and turned his head just as he was trying to land on David’s shoulder. Unable to land, Pete flew onward and out the door.
The whole family was said about the loss of Pete, but Pete had been trained by someone else, and we told ourselves that he would find his way back to his original owner. However, Mom, who worked at the University of Florida, had told her whole Department about the amazing Pete and that he was missing and a couple of days later someone told Mom that a parakeet had been found at the University’s Cory Village for married students. Driving there, we indeed found that it was Pete. After David demonstrated some of Pete’s tricks to the people that found him, we brought Pete back home.
Pete
and David.
Pete was fascinated with the movements of people's lips as in the photo. He seemed to be trying to learn words and in time he did. His favorite words were, "Merry Christmas" and "Give me a kiss". Another phrase Dad taught him to say was "Pete's a dirty bird", because of the doughnuts found in the house. Parakeets poop are small circular green droppings with a white center which I called “doughnuts” and the name stuck. Everywhere Pete perched he would leave doughnuts, often found dried on our shoulders, sometimes unnoticed until you went somewhere, and someone would say, “What’s that on your shoulder?”, and we would respond, “Oh, that’s a doughnut.”, and flick it off. Of course we would then have to tell them about Pete.
Sister
Beth, age 7, with Pete.
I'm sitting behind her.
Note oriental painting on the wall behind her.
David
holding Pete in front of the living room curtains.
OnOne of Pete’s favorite places to perch was on top of the red curtains in the living room which Mom hated because he would leave doughnuts on the curtains. The red curtains were part of the oriental motif that the living room was decorated in. The oriental theme was not Mom’s design but her mother’s, Grandma Junior, who lived in the house for nine months before we moved in.
David with Pete climbing a ladder
Pete loved to play games and could do all sorts of tricks one was racing around the house with David. David describes the experience:
"Starting on the couch on the porch I would jump up and run into the living room and touch the far wall with Pete flying in pursuit! Then running back through the living room and into the kitchen to touch the back door and Pete would do this incredible flying somersault and gain the lead. Sprinting back to the porch to the starting point on the couch, Pete would ALWAYS beat me!! "
Pete
walking on the floor
Another thing David would do with Pete was to make a tunnel on the floor using Gainesville Sun newspaper sections connected in inverted V shape then calling Pete from one end of the tunnel, Pete would walk through the tunnel. I especially got a kick seeing this.
Pete
taking a bath in the bathroom sink
Pete loved taking a bath bathing under running water from the kitchen or bathroom sink. David would turn the water on, and Pete would walk from his shoulder, down his arm and get under the running water. Pete would first wet one wing, shake it, then do the other wing before letting water run on his back and then doing a final full fluff shake.
Pete would periodically molt, shedding old feathers and growing new ones. The new feathers would grow on the top of his head in a dark tight cluster before opening up fully. Pete liked to be head scratched when he was molting.
Pete
drinking out of a cup
At dinnertime Pete would join the family at the dinner table, running around on the table snatching things off our plates and leaving a few doughnuts on the table. Us kids found it amusing but Mom hated it saying, “Get that dirty bird off my table!”
David and I shared a bedroom with a bunk bed, I had the top bunk and David the bottom. We both had desks with David’s at the end of the bunkbed. Pete sometimes would help with David’s homework. David tells the story:
“When seated doing math homework with a pencil, the eraser end would bob, and Pete would joust with it! I would even jab at Pete with the eraser tip, and he would fly up a little ways and re-land to continue.” And another time, “For an in-room assignment for Mrs. Mase 9th grade English class, I was easily able to write about Pete that otherwise would have been a difficult task.”
In the fall with us kids in school and Mom and Dad working all day, David thought that Pete should have a companion and so we bought a green parakeet to keep Pete company. Pete did not seem to particularly like the new resident. David said, “I thought that compared to Pete the new parakeet was rather dimwitted. An unjust assumption as it was just not trained.” I believe the new parakeet was another male was reason why Pete didn't like it, things may have been different if it was a female.
Pete with David
We had Pete for a couple of years when one day David and I came home from Westwood Junior High and found Pete lying on the bottom of his cage. At first, we thought he was dead but soon saw he was still moving so we called Dad at work and told him about Pete. Dad, who worked at the University of Florida Chemistry Department, said he had an idea and said he would soon be home. Dad got home fifteen minutes later with a plastic bag filled with pure oxygen into which he placed Pete. Pete did perk up and I thought he would be okay but within an hour he died. Dad took Pete out and buried him in the backyard. The whole family was sad for weeks after Pete dying, the house seemed empty when we came home without Pete there to greet us.
Years later David said, “I never asked Dad where Pete was buried. I did place some of Pete's feathers in a small metal box (Curiously Strong Altoids Mint) that I kept for some 30 years before opening the box and finding them returned to dust. In the intervening years I often had vivid dreams about Pete the Parakeet.”
Updated: 03-10-2024