Ode to Parrot


This all began with a family trip for a particular item at yard sales, or garage sales, which ever may appeal to you individually. While looking around at several stops, I came across a programmable mechanical parrot. You could turn the switch on at the bottom of the stand, and it would record. You could turn the switch around, and it would play back what had been recorded when ever a sound was made near it.
You can still buy this bird "Pete the Repeat" on ebay 
I took it home and we all played with it for a while. it was a lot of fun. After we had it for some time, I took it over to school, and Vance and I would say things into the microphone and then turn the switch and make a noise and listen to it play back what we had said. We thought it would be fun to record something and put it in John’s office.
John was the principal and my boss, but it still sounded like fun so we did it. I said into the microphone “Hi Baldy.” John was not totally bald, but was concerned about his appearance. I think you could say that he was “follicley” challenged. The next morning, we were watching when he walked into school. He was with the assistant superintendent. John motioned to me to come into the office for a meeting. I came in, and we sat down, and the assistant superintendent spoke a couple of words and the parrot said “Hi Baldy.” I had been meant for John who was thinning a little, but it got the visitor from the district, who was bald.
He wanted to know what was going on, and his voice set the parrot off again, saying, “Hi Baldy.” Though he was embarrassed, he was a good sport about it. John then said for me to get the thing out of there. With the sound of his voice the parrot again said “Hi Baldy,” which the assistant superintendent thought was funny that the bird thought John was bald also.
I took the bird to my office and turned it off and went back to the meeting which was about the vocational programs at the school. After the meeting John wanted to see the bird so we went to my office and he started talking to the bird trying to make it talk. He kept trying, but it just wouldn’t talk. He left and went back to his office. While he was out, I put the parrot back in his room among the many different items that he had, turned it on and left. When he came back, he made a telephone call to the assistant superintendent to apologize, and when he started to talk, the bird again said, “Hi Baldy.” He found the bird’s hiding place and came down to my office. All the way, whenever he said anything, the bird would say the same thing. He handed it to me, and I slipped my hand under the little cover and turned it off. John start talking again, and the bird said nothing. I said that maybe it would only talk in his room.
I finally showed him where to turn it on and off, and how to record a new message. He thought it was great and took it back to his office and recorded something on it. He then called someone into his office to let the parrot say something. It took a while, but he finally gave me the parrot back.



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