When I was in upper grade school and high school I had a little friend whose name was Rickie. He was very ornery and adventurous and was a lot of fun. He could get into trouble without even trying most of the time. He spent most of his time in his own little home that was located in the living room. His home was very ornate and had several spots to rest on and a swing that he enjoyed a lot.
His meals were prepared by my mom and she made sure that he always had plenty available to eat and some of his favorite treats to go along with his meals. He wasn’t picky about his food so it was easy to make him happy.
There were three things that he loved to do more than anything else. But he had to be supervised with most of it or he got into trouble with my mom. The first thing he loved to do was sing and dance. He loved to have the radio or moms records playing so he could dance to them if he liked the song or beat.
His favorite song was: The Lion Sleeps Tonight. We never figured out what there was about the song that he loved. Maybe it brought back memories of the wild life his ancestors had enjoyed or maybe he just loved the beat, we never knew for sure.
When we put that record on he would get on the longest perch in his home and start to sing. Here are a few of the lyrics from that song:
In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight.
In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight.
Chorus:
Wee-ooh wim-o-weh.
Wim-o-weh o-wim-o-weh o-wim-o-weh o-wim-o-weh
o-wim-o-weh o-wim-o-weh o-wim-weh.
When they started to sing the chorus Rickie would start to race back and forth across the perch and bounce his head up and down and then swing it side to side. He loved that song. I would play it just to watch him.
He also liked to help mom when she was pinning a pattern on fabric. Mom didn’t like his help but I would make sure he got to have some fun when I was around. I would usually take him out of his home and when mom had her back to me putting in pins I would put him down on the pattern as far from mom as I could.
Rickie would immediately start walking along the pattern and pulling out the pins that she had put in. He pulled each pin out by the head and would drop it at his feet almost in the same position it had been. Then he would move on to the next one in the line of pins.
If he kept quiet and didn’t make a sound he could get them all out before she noticed he was there. He would be right behind her elbow as she put in the only pin that he hadn’t got to when he would make the mistake of moving around her elbow and grabbing for the last pin.
She would holler: “Rickie, get off the pattern, look what you did……..you pulled all the pins out that I just put in.” Rickie was not afraid of her and would still be looking for other pins. She’d make a grab for him and if she missed catching him, she would yell at me “Sandra…. Get in here and get this monster, you turned him loose now you catch him and put him back in his cage!!”
Rickie Blue loved to take a bath more than anything else in the world. He was given a little shallow bowl once a week to bathe or play in the water which ever he preferred. But that was not often enough for him.
If he could get out of his cage, he would race into the kitchen after our meal. He seemed to know when Mom was washing dishes and that was just a large bathtub for him. It was always a shock to her when he would all of a sudden land in the dish water with a splash.
It was too deep for him and he would begin to flop around and she would have to save him and rinse him off and then put him back in his cage. But he accomplished what he wanted to do, he got another bath.
Rickie Blue if you haven’t guessed was a blue parakeet who loved mischief, mostly perpetrated against my mother.
To Contact Sandy: [email protected]
