Ralph was a pal who could speak 17 words.
He was a parakeet who could give a wolf whistle.
He could call the dog, with a ‘wheet wheet wheet wheet”, and my border
collie Lassie would come running .
There Lassie sat, tongue panting, tail wagging, and Ralph with a smile-(-I
swear it’s true)–on his beak.
Ralph’s green neon-feathered head would bob in delight when I neared his
cage.
He met my welcoming hand with affection–perhaps too much affection, for
he was a male parakeet with too many hormones and not a place to spend
them.
Bright electric-green plumage crowned his head and wings, while his
handsome little face bore a necklace of black polka dots.
A friend named Janice had hand-raised him, from a tiny hairless bundle of
skin and bones, telling me that a parakeet that feels the touch of a human
hand frequently will be a better pet and will bond with human beings more
thoroughly.
Though he was left with his mother for 8 weeks, he was handled every day
by Jan, before he became my pet.
It was certainly true, little Ralph had bonded with me.
He loved to listen to songs on the radio, preferring Dolly Parton with her
high pitched soprano, or the sound of a violin or fiddle.
When I taught him to repeat sounds, I would say the word over and over
and I would choose a different tone for each repetition.
‘Pretty boy’, ‘pretty girl’, ‘gimmie kiss’, ‘pretty please’, ‘mama’, ‘daddy’, love
you’, were all part of his vocabulary.
He loved to chirp or talk along with the vacuum cleaner.
I never brought it too close to his cage, preferring to move him to another
room when the Hoover ‘slurped’ up the mountain of moulted feathers that
occurred every 5 months.
Ralph loved his bath…the trouble is, everything that held water became his
bathtub!
He fluttered in his water dish daily. When I let him out of his cage, he loved
puttering around a steamy shower room.
Naturally, I had to make sure the toilet lid was down and also that there was
no water in the sink!
Since his wings had been clipped, he never was an Ace navigator while on
the wing.
When he was out of the cage, he’d loop and dash madly for a window,
clawing his way up a curtain and staying just above the dog’s inquisitive
nose.
He WAS very untidy, if the truth be known.
Seeds and chaff were all over the house, and the way he shredded-and
discarded stems of celery and lettuce-was enough to drive me to drink.
Oh, yes, of course, drink.
Yep, I remember cleaning up after a party. Before I could wash all the dirty
glasses that held a few drops of adult beverage in the bottoms, old Ralph
had taken a sample….a drunk bird is a sight to behold.
He’d flutter and flop, do a crazy little dance on the settee, walk with his
eyes half closed, and finally plop down on the carpet, sound asleep.
When I hoisted him back to his cage, I decided that was the first and last
partying Ralph would enjoy. I didn’t want the ASPCA to jail me for “bird
abuse.”
Ralph was my dear little companion for 6 years. When I went on vacation,
I took him over to Clark Manor House in Canandaigua, New York for HIS
vacation with my clients—I was a nurse at the senior citizen home.
Those ladies and gents really loved Ralph! He chattered and they listened,
they fed him so many greens that he practically needed a diaper.
One summer vacation week, he was held hostage by an elderly senile
client.
She wouldn’t let me take him back home until the Clark Manor Matron of
the Home took over and distracted her while I escaped with Ralph.
Alas, that was the end of Ralph’s little vacations at the Manor House.
I loved him and cherished him, and often took him out in his cage in the
summer to sit in a shaded locale in the yard while I knitted or read.
He’d respond very loudly to other bird calls in the area, and learned a
second language..
.he learned to talk Cardinal!
Somehow he caught a chill one Christmas time, probably because I left him
with his first ‘foster mother’ Janice and her sniffling birds while I went on
vacation for a week.
He shuddered and trembled, oral antibiotics and a warm lightbulb near his
covered cage couldn’t heal him,
and his little heart gave out.
Mine almost did, too.
‘Rest in Peace.”
I sure miss you, little guy.
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