R.M.T: The Cockatoo

Random Memory Triggers (R.M.T)

The Cockatoo.

This one isn't embarrassing but it is funny.

I was walking with my eldest daughter through Wollongong to go pick up her sister from daycare. As we walked along the road a sulphur-crested cockatoo flew over our heads screeching. They often do this in our area and of course it triggers a memory from my childhood and I shared it with my daughter. So here it is:

As a kid Mum shared with my sister and I that Dad had always wanted a pet cockatoo so he could teach it to talk. We already had a pet, a grey long haired Persian named Lionel who was never a hunting kitty but would rather lay about and chill.

Anyway, an old football friend of Dad's was moving his family and they couldn't take their pet cockatoo with them so he offered it to us. We all piled into the car and drove all the way from Gerringong to Nowra (or some place near it) to meet the family and pick up the bird in our Kingswood in the back seat with the cage strapped in a seat belt.

My sister and I kept it company and peeking under the sheet to talk to it. During the trip home Mum and Dad told us something about the eldest daughter of the family we just met. The eldest daughter had Tourettes Syndrome which meant that the bird had a well built vocabulary of foul language.

We got home and Dad built him a large aviary on our back verandah which overlooked the entire backyard and the back fence into the Dairy Co-op where Dad worked. He named this bird, Trud and he used to dance and sqwark loudly which could be heard up the hill a few blocks away. Our house and The Co-op were located at the bottom of the hill in Gerringong so any sound from our yard or the Co-op echoed.

Because of the echo the verandah was a good spot to call out, after school I would call Lionel so I could pat him. I didn't realise that Trud was listening to me until one day we found out that whenever we were out of the house the bird would mimick my voice and call the cat 'Lionel! Lionel!' and the cat would come running home several times a day.

A few years later he escaped, we don't know how, and the last thing he said as flew way in his sqwarky voice was 'F*&K!'.

(Google Image Search)