The Story of a Cockatiel

(or, How I Was Unfriended Before There Was a Facebook)

So, when I was a sophomore at Biola College in La Mirada, California, back in the day (1966-67), I lived in a campus apartment with 4 other guys, Walt, Julian, Dave, and Gary .  Anyway, Walt had a pet cockatiel named Lingy that could do the wolf-whistle and say “Pretty Bird”.  Walt had had him for years and he certainly took good care of him, and we all liked him; he often sat outside of his cage and was entertaining and a novelty for all of us.  When Walt would go home over a weekend or for a break, we would take care of Lingy for him, checking his food and water and putting a towel over his cage at night. 

In 1967-68, when I was a junior, I moved into a dorm room with a new roommate named Wes.  The room was located upstairs on the second floor near the end of a wing that overlooked an old olive grove, right next to a junior high school sports field, sort of a little rural spot in the midst of the suburbs.  As friends, and me being experienced with Lingy, Walt asked me to again take care of his bird while he went home to San Lorenzo over the weekend; Walt brought Lingy in his cage to leave him there at my room with me.  Lingy loved to be outside of his cage, and was fine with that; his only idiosyncrasy was that, whenever the phone would ring, he would immediately take off flying around the room but would then land and eventually fly back and perch on the top of his cage. 

It was Sunday afternoon, the weekend was drawing to a close, and I was alone in my dorm room with Lingy perched on his cage, wolf-whistling and minding his own business.  What happened next is exactly as it happened, I am not making this up (as Walt, apparently, later believed that I did).  With impeccable timing, my roommate returned to the room and, as he opened the door to come in, the phone rang at that very moment, launching Lingy into his panic flight mode, and off he flew right out the door.  I bolted out the door after him and from the balcony saw him flying out toward the olive grove thinking that was it, I’ll never see him again, when all of a sudden I see a hawk or falcon fly up out of the trees to meet him in mid air, some feathers flying, and the two of them, locked in a death grip, descended down onto the grassy field of the school across the fence at the back of our dormitory building!  I flew down the stairs myself and up the little rise to the chain link fence that divided the properties, somehow climbed the fence in a quick motion, and, waving my arms and shouting like crazy I successfully scared the bird of prey away from his little victim and scooped Lingy up to safety, being as gentle as I could with him in his traumatized state!  I could see immediately that one of his legs was injured, carefully held him as I climbed back over the fence and got him back up into the room and the familiarity of his cage, hoping for the best.  At first, poor Lingy just lay there in the soft towel I set him on, he couldn’t perch, and was obviously in shock and not too responsive.  I cleaned his wounded leg the best I could, and kept holding him and talking to him, until eventually he was able to come around and perch again, his weight mostly on his good leg but bravely making the effort to hang on and pull through this life-threatening experience. 

Again, it was Sunday afternoon.  Walt hadn’t left me the name of his veterinarian, if he had one, and I figured any such clinics would be closed on a Sunday.  I knew Walt would be driving back from the Bay Area and, being way before such inventions as cell phones, I had no way to reach him.  Since Lingy seemed to be “holding his own” I decided I would just wait for Walt’s return to see what he wanted to do to get any treatment for his pet, figuring he would likely come by that evening when he arrived back at the dorm.  As the evening wore on, and Walt didn’t come by, I covered Lingy’s cage with a towel and went to bed. 

The next morning, early, there was a knock on our door, and, of course, it was Walt coming to get Lingy.  I was still asleep, but as I woke up and Walt came in to get the cage, seemingly in a hurry, I tried to tell him what had happened – “Walt, I have something to tell you – yesterday Lingy got away and a hawk flew up and got him and I think he’s injured”.  Walt laughed and said “Very funny, Ned” and briefly looked under the towel to see Lingy perched there appearing as normal as ever, and then quickly exited the room and headed off to his own dorm and to get his day going.  I got up and started getting ready for class when all of a sudden Walt comes charging in the door, a desperate look on his face, and starts yelling at me, “What did you do to my bird???  What did you do to my bird???”  I responded, “I tried to tell you, Walt, Lingy was on his cage and when Wes came in the door, the phone rang, and a hawk . . .” That was about as far as I could get, Walt was beside himself, accused me of lying to him, was seething with anger, and was in no mood to hear some far-fetched story about some mysterious hawk – he looked at me angrily and, tears in his eyes, stormed out of the room.  

That was the last time Walt and I ever spoke.  I had been a friend to both he and his girlfriend (who he later married), but neither of them would ever speak to me again.  If I saw them on campus, they avoided me.  Our relationship was permanently severed by this incident.  As I’ve thought about it, the emergence of that bird of prey was very fortuitous, in that, had it not attacked Lingy and brought him down to the field, Walt would likely have lost him forever; that bird really saved Lingy’s life.  I heard that Lingy recovered and survived the ordeal, I was always sorry that our friendship did not.  I don’t know what Walt thought, that I purposefully injured the bird, or did something to it that I was trying to hide by making up a preposterous story about a hawk being the source of Lingy’s injury.  

I have told this story to friends over the years numerous times and think it is a great story in many ways, but I am saddened by the ultimate result that led to the end of a friendship, that because of a personal experience with a cockatiel, I gave up some of my personal appeal, here’s the whole of the story I now can reveal, though I guess Walt would still never believe that it’s real (had to slip a bit of poetry in at the end, couldn't help myself).