Mitch

Mitch was one of my pets as a kid. I was terrified of dogs, allergic to cats, never thought about having a turtle or a hamster. So I ended up with Mitch, my parakeet! I think I probably begged for a bird; grandpa took me to Woolworths or some other 5 & dime store downtown close to the gas station where he worked. There was a section with a few parakeets and together we chose the blue one with "the beard" and a white beard to boot. To explain the beard, there was a show we watched with a band and the conductor of that band had a white beard and his name was Mitch Miller....hence the name of my new bird ;) Mitch. Mitch was teased by grandpa often - more than often it seemed. So my sweet Mitch became very fiesty! Which made me afraid of him. To feed the bird was taking a risk - go into the cage with 10 fingers, come out with 9?? And then heaven forbid,if he ever escaped his cage and would fly around the house. I would cover my head and run up the stairs, not realizing the bird would fly up..not down. Thankfully grandpa would always catch Mitch and put him back in his place. I don't remember how long we had Mitch, but I do remember the morning I saw him laying in his cage, not moving and thought...ah man, he's dead. And in my own weird way, I was relieved - no more worrying about my fingers getting bitten off or him flying into my head. And then I felt guilty for feeling relieved .. the next pet I had was a fish, which lived a very short time. He had jumped out of his very shallow bowl and I found him laying on the table, thinking it was a leaf. That was the end of pets...until I had children - that's a whole other chapter.