“Chickery chick, cha-la, cha-la
Check-a-la romey in a bananika
Bollika, wollika, can’t you see
Chickery chick is me?”
If you are a reader born post-World War II, you won’t remember when that song hit the charts, but believe it or not, that silly little ditty has once again hit tremendous popularity in my “bird house” in which my singing canaries, fancy show bantams and a dozen free-range laying hens are confined for the winter.
I need only approach the building and Beta, my blue and gold macaw, shouts out “Hellooo” in welcome. Before I even get the door open, having been forewarned by Beta’s loud and pronounced salutation, I am greeted in chorus by each and all in their own form of singing. They know they are soon to be fed and watered.
Though dialect and accent vary greatly, with size, sex and breed, I know they are singing the one and same tune. But I feel they have changed slightly just the last line to “When are you gonna feed me?”
So you see, folks, life for me has not really changed that much. I have raised birds as a hobby near all my life. And for the 53 years that I enjoyed with my Little Lady, before she went to walk with the angels, I was greeted each morning with a hug, sometimes a giggle and a definite peck on the cheek. Now I am greeted with a squawk, squeal or cackle and one or more pecks on the back of my hand. The only thing lacking now is my comment, “What’s for breakfast?”
It is funny how the cacophony of noise that greets me each morning brings back long ago memories. But the fact is, not once in her entire life, if she were at home, did my Little Lady let any one of our children, or myself, five o’clock early, or ten o’clock late, leave the house without sitting down to a healthy, usually bacon and eggs, breakfast.
More often than not, in advancing years, she would haul a child in off the street and sit him or her down to milk and cookies. She could tell a hungry child from a mile away. That was just one of her tight-lipped addictions; she told no one. She made the cookies and I just wandered down to the nearby 7-Eleven and brought home another bag of milk.
That I didn’t mind doing because I knew that more cookies would be in the making. She, a dedicated “practise-what-you-preach” conservationist, was not one to heat up the oven without having it adequately filled. There were usually three or four apple pies, or such like, occupying the shelf ’neath the one where the cookies were cooking.
Need I say more? Yes, I miss her!
Take care, ‘cause we care.
barrie@barriehopkins.ca
519-986-4105