THE BEST VIEW: Don’t you bring home one of those

by Norma Best Boucher

“Don’t you bring home one of those things, Raymond.”

I didn’t know what my mother meant by “things,” but I did know by the smile on my father’s face and the wink of his eye that we were going to do just that: bring home “one of those things.”

This was the 1950s.

My father and I walked to Main Street, in Downtown Waterville. Displayed in a storefront window near McClellan’s Five and Dime and Emery-Brown Company were dozens of color-dyed baby chicks.

I don’t remember all the colors, but I do remember that I wanted a blue one, my favorite color. They were selling very fast, so I was on pins and needles worrying that I wouldn’t get one.

I was so excited. This was my first pet. We had a family outside cat, but he only came into the house to eat and nap and was not very friendly.

By the time we got home, I had named my new pet chick Blue Jay. I had no way of knowing whether Blue Jay was a rooster or a hen, but I referred to the bird as “he.”

Apparently, my mother had resigned herself to the fact that my father was going to buy me a chick because when we got home, she had a brown cardboard box lined with a towel already prepared.

Chick food that my father had purchased and water were placed in dishes in the box.

A problem arose the first night when the baby chick would not go to sleep. He had chirped all day, and although he was totally exhausted, when nighttime arrived, he was even more scared and noisy.

My mother, who always knew what to do, picked him up, put him on her lap with a warm towel and rocked Blue Jay to sleep.

From that time on, Blue Jay ran the house.

He strutted around the room when we were there. When he chirped, we held him. He didn’t care who held him during the day, but NO one could rock him to sleep at night except my mother.

Blue Jay even did tricks. He climbed onto my foot, climbed up my leg to my stomach and then to my shoulder. His finale was a peck on my cheek.

But, alas, the time came when Blue Jay started to lose his blue down coloring, develop white feathers and attempt to fly out of his now medium sized box.

That was when I understood why my mother had said NOT to bring home “that thing.”

I was heartbroken when I knew that I had to give up my pet chicken.

My mother’s rule had been that when he could fly out of the box, he had to go.

I had only had Blue Jay for a few short weeks, but I was very attached to him. We all were.

I hadn’t even thought about where Blue Jay would go when he left our house, but my father already knew the ending to this chick story.

“I have a friend who has a farm, six children, and six new chickens, “Dad told me. That friend said that we could give Blue Jay to him, and his children would take care of my chick as one of their own.

I spent the last morning with Blue Jay taking pictures of him with my Brownie camera.

When we arrived at the farm, all of the siblings came running out to meet me. They were as excited to have a new pet as I had been on my first day with Blue Jay.

I remember asking the oldest brother, “You won’t eat him, will you?”

“No way. Don’t worry. We don’t eat pets,” he assured me.

Years later I saw that older sibling. I recognized him because he was a spitting image of his dad.

I approached him, gave my name and the former circumstances under which we had met.

“Tell me the truth, please. Did you eat him, my Blue Jay?” I asked.

“Heck, no,” he answered with a smile. “No way was anyone going to eat our pet chickens.”

I gave an audible sigh of relief.

“We did, however,” he chuckled, “eat his eggs.”