I told you that story to tell you this one: A Continuation

When my Dad was 8 years old he had a cap gun that he loved to no end. According to my grandmother he spent all of his waking hours that fateful summer playing with the cap gun. I don't know, I guess it was 1966 and not much else was going on or something, either way, times were tight and that was his latest toy. Also, in 1966 we were not worried too much about child safety because said cap gun actually shot out a little "cap". Don't most of today's cap guns just make a little poof?

Anyways.

In 1966, my grandmother had a bit of a menagerie of birds. Come to think of it, they had a menagerie of animals. Several dogs, several birds, and a Caymen Alligator. The poor Caymen would meet a tragic fate at the hands of my father, but that's a later story. On this particular day, my young dad had his sights set on one thing and one thing only: my grandmother's beloved canary.

There are two versions of this story that circulate through family lore. It really depends on who you choose to believe.

The version by my own Dad goes a little something like this:

I was just sitting there in the living room, watching Captain Kangaroo on TV when Mom's canary flew to perch on the top of the television set. I accidentally shot my cap gun in the general direction of the bird and she fell over, dead.

I think it generally goes without saying, I don't believe this version of the story, ONE BIT.

The second version of this story goes a little something like this: as transcribed from my Aunt B,

Your father was a mean little boy. I mean, really mean. He would guard our front yard and not let people walk on the sidewalk in front of our house. Mean, okay? Mama loved that canary. She would let it free to fly around the living room and he would perch on her finger if she whistled. Your father, as you can imagine was quite jealous of Mama and the bird. Did I mention he was mean? 'Cause he was also jealous of anything that might love Mama too. So, he took one look at that bird that day and killed it...on the spot. It's a wonder he isn't a serial killer now.

That's the version I believe. Because you take one look at these pictures and try to deny that my father was a mean kid:



So yesterday when Jon managed to kill a bird while it was innocently eating in a retreat I created with my own two hands, I knew I finally had my equivalent bird story. Especially when Jon denied aiming at the bird that he killed, "it just flew in the way of my shot" he said.

Right.

And Dad just accidentally killed the canary on his TV set.