In honor of Mother’s Day 2020, I thought I would gift anyone interested in the read, a little story about my first and only shot at motherhood. It began rather innocently in 2011, a year after my mother passed away and two years before my father would die from kidney failure and join my mother in heaven.
I had walked out the side door of my house and strolled casually across the lawn to the sidewalk that parallels Buffalo Speedway, a major thoroughfare that runs through my neighborhood, about a mile and a half from the famous Houston Medical Center and Rice University. My first steps were going to be the beginning of a planned one-mile walk for exercise.
As I reached the sidewalk I detected a slight movement in my peripheral vision, from the corner of my left eye. I looked down at the curb that bordered this busy street and was startled to see a baby dove, trying desperately to take it’s first steps, into what was surely impending doom. A few seconds later and I’m certain it would have been run over by a passing car.
One of the first “life lessons” my maternal grandfather, Papa Brown, had taught me as a young boy was to never touch a baby bird, rabbit, or any animal or fowl if I wanted to reunite it with its lost mother. He insisted that if I touched the baby, it would have human scent on its body and the mother would have nothing to do with it, insisting the baby would eventually die from lack of food and/or water. I sought similar advice from my mother, father and aunt, and they all confirmed that wiser words had never been spoken. Finally, here I was, over 50 years later, putting heeding Papa Brown’s warning, my mind racing to come up with a solution to protect this young bird.
I quickly took one of my tasseled black loafers off and placed the shoe upside down on the tiny dove so it had no chance of crawling farther into the street. I ran back into my house with one shoe on and one shoe off, scrambled up the stairs to my bedroom closet and got an empty shoe box to house the little dove. As I ran through the kitchen on my way to the side door, I stopped for a second to grab a paper towel. Once outside I picked up my shoe, laid the shoe box down sideways with one side flat against the pavement, then folded up the paper towel until it was stiff enough to shovel the dove into the box.
I took it inside thinking I would return the bird back to the nest it had fallen from minutes earlier. After punching a few holes in the box cover I placed the cover on tight, and left my new boxed-up fuzzy feathered friend on the kitchen counter-top.
I went back outside to see if I could find the bird nest the baby dove had fallen from and spotted it straight above the spot I had found the struggling little chick, on a small forked limb no bigger than my wrist. Realizing immediately there was no way in hell I was going to get my fat butt twenty feet up the tree and onto a tree limb that couldn’t hold more than 50 pounds of dead weight at best.
I quickly realized the idea of reuniting the chick with its mother should be scraped and I could now touch the dove. I had no idea on how I could ever return the baby chick to its mother.
Once back inside the house I took the cover off the box again and stared at my precious little fuzzy friend for several minutes, pondering what I was going to feed it and how I would be able to keep it alive. I discussed the matter with my wife Jonette and that’s when she suggested I go to our local Petco store and ask for advice.
Twenty minutes later I found myself at Petco, asking for instructions on how to feed a baby dove. The sales clerk was very helpful and really knew a lot about birds. He showed me a powered product they sell, explained how all I had to do was mix the powder with water, suck the slurry up into a feeding syringe, hold the bird with my thumb and forefinger around the chick’s jaws in a certain manner to keep its beak open, then shove the food slurry down its throat slowly until until it had finally consumed all the contents of the syringe.
This feeding process worked much easier than I anticipated. But let’s face it, if you think house-training puppies is difficult, try house-training a bird with a brain no bigger than a pea. Without going into graphic detail, I learned within seconds of that first feeding that I needed a bird cage, and the bird always needed to be placed on a paper towel when feeding it or letting it rest on my shoulder. Otherwise, you had a mess on your hands.
Jonette told me about an old birdcage in her mother’s garage. I went immediately to her mother’s house ten minutes away, and in less than 20 minutes the new baby had a home. All she needed was a name, but I couldn’t name her unless I knew her sex. I called the guy up at Petco, texted him a photo, and he quickly concluded she was a white wing female dove.
All my life I’ve gotten a kick at doing impressions of various people, animals and cartoon characters. To this day my grandchildren love to hear my impression of Donald Duck, an impression I learned watching cartoons after school with my sister growing up in the small town of Anacoco, Louisiana.
One such celebrity I used to enjoy imitating was Cary Grant, and my favorite Cary Grant impression is simply saying the words, “Judy, Judy, Judy in succession, but done in Cary Grant dialect, cadence and accent, as in “Juday, Juday, Juday.” While feeding the little bird I started talking like Cary Grant and said to her over and over, “Juday, Juday, Juday.” Immediately I decided to name her “Judy.” The name stuck and soon my wife and children were calling her “Judy” as well.
Judy was never difficult to feed. Her fuzz quickly gave way to feathers within a couple of weeks of finding her. She was kept downstairs in the bird cage, which was set up in our family room. She quickly proved herself to be a smart little thing. Her hearing was so extraordinary that she would hear me coming down the stairs in the morning and start chirping like mad and flapping her wings before I ever stepped into our family room. This became her way of telling me she was hungry and wanted to eat. Likewise, the minute I returned home from work she would go nuts until I took her out of the cage and fed her.
I had a portable laptop computer table that I keep in the family room and often worked from while sitting in my easy chair. She loved to sit on the table while I fed her. Once feeding was over I would place a paper towel on my left shoulder and she would sit on the towel and watch TV with me for 2 or 3 hours at a time without ever leaving my shoulders.
Feedings and time spent out of the cage became a daily ritual. She only wanted me to feed her and no one else. As she began to get older I would toss her in the air to see if she was ready to fly. It took her several weeks before she finally got the courage and flew through the family room into the kitchen and perched herself on the counter-top.
As weeks turned into months I was becoming very attached to her and looking forward to returning from work each day to feed and play with her. Still, I knew the time was fast-approaching to let her go into the wild, so that she would be free to fly and enjoy life as the beautiful dove she was meant to be.
When the day finally come for me to say goodbye to her, I placed Judy on my shoulder and walked outside on my patio. I reached up towards her with one hand, she stepped onto my forefinger, I held her out in front of me, told her I loved her but her time had come to sail the wild blue yonder and live life as a free dove. I put both hands around her light body, tossed her up into the air and she flew a 25-foot circle and returned to land on my shoulder again. I must have tossed her into the air ten or twelve more times, and each time she would come back to me, land on my shoulder, and chirp as if she was the happiest bird on earth.
For several days I was torn on what to do. On the one hand I knew I wanted her to enjoy life as a bird, but on the other, I felt that maybe she had become to domesticated and would not be able to survive in the wild, so to speak.
It was time to visit my Dad in Louisiana one weekend and I told Jonette I was going to take Judy with us. I had never mentioned Judy to my Dad when we talked on the phone because I had thought about the possibility of simply surprising him by walking into his home with Judy on my shoulder during a future visit.
I grew up hunting and fishing, and my Dad and I had been on numerous dove hunts together. In fact, we would often invite 15 to 20 other hunters and it wasn’t unusual to kill 400 to 500 doves on opening day of dove season. My Dad became know for his famous Dove Gumbo, a hit with all the hunters. Now here I was, 63-years old at the time, an owner of a pet dove, and had not dove hunted in 28 to 30 years. Likewise, my Dad had probably not hunted doves for 20 years himself.
We decided to make the 3 1/2 drive to my Dad’s house one weekend, a trip we usually made every 6 to 8 weeks. This time was a little different, in that we probably had not seen my Dad for at least 3 months. Getting out of the car I took Judy out of her cage, placed her up on my right shoulder and walked into the house to greet my Dad, who had never gotten up from his recliner.
We called it the “Anacoco entry.” No knock, no locked door, just walk right in and announce yourself. As I walked into his den, where he sat watching college football, he went from hollering, “Y’all c’mon back here!” to “What in the hell is that?” I laughed and said, “Dad, I want you to meet my newest child Judy.” He said, “Get out of here, is that bird real?” I said, “Yep, it sure is.” Of course immediately he wanted to know where it came from, why it didn’t fly away, how long had she been with me, etc.?”
I walked over to Daddy and took Judy from my shoulder and placed her on his left shoulder. She began to run back and forth on this shoulder, then sit still a minute, move around, sit, move around, and then got right up close to his neck and left ear. I sat down on the sofa and began to answer his many questions. After three or four minutes my Dad went to speak, but had a noticeably cracked voice, as if he might be on the verge of tears. Known far and wide as an excellent BS artist that could cry on cue, I sat silently waiting for the words to roll out of his mouth so I could gauge if his sudden soft spot or hint of sadness was real or not.
Then slowly, the words rolled out of his mouth. “You know son, she’s smart. She’s trying to talk to me. She’s got that little beak right up in my ear and she’s just chirping away.” I asked, “Well why are you so sad?” He said, “Because I used to shoot and kill these little fellows and never thought twice about it. I had no idea they had brains. I’m telling you son, she’s talking to me, I don’t what the hell she’s saying because I don’t talk bird talk, but it’s sweet, whatever it is, it’s sweet. And I know one thing . . . ” I asked, “What’s that Dad?” He said, “I’m never ever going to kill another dove again. No way in hell. Son, this bird’s got brains, she’s damn sure talking to me, singing sweet little nothings in my ear.” I laughed and said, “Well, that gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “birdbrain ideas.”
My daughter Katia, my youngest of four children, had traveled with Jonette and I to Anacoco. We sat and talked to Dad and few more minutes when Jonette looked at me and said, “Katia wants to know if we can go to the Leesville Wal-Mart and do a little shopping while you boys watch football.” Dad and I both said “no problem,” and Jonette and Katia left to go shopping.
Dad and I talked football, Louisiana politics and local news for a few more minutes, then really settled into the football game. All the while, Judy set on Dad’s left shoulder. At one point he said, “I must have some ear mites or something.” Ever the joker, I knew he was trying to come up with a punch line, so I played straight man and asked, “What’s makes you say that?” He said, “She’s got that little beak of her’s buried in my ear hole and going to town on something.” I laughed my butt off for a minute, he smiled and within three or four more minutes of watching football we both drifted off into what we commonly called an “Anacoco nap.”
I awoke about 30 minutes later, looked over at Dad and saw he was still asleep, Judy was still on his shoulder, but so was something else. I got up, slipped over to examine what I was seeing on Dad’s shirt, then suddenly realized I had forgotten to put a paper towel on Dad’s shoulder and Judy had pooped numerous times, with bird droppings all over Dad’s pretty white golf shirt. As I reached down to retrieve Judy, Dad awoke and asked what I was doing. I pointed to the droppings that he was capable of seeing when he looked down at his chest and said, “If you think your chest looks bad, you should see your shoulder dude. Do you want me to go get the shotgun? I can throw her in the air and you can shoot her!” He responded in a pitiful little voice and said, “You better not shoot that bird. That bird’s worth a lot of money. She’s smart son, and she can talk to you. There ain’t no way in hell I’m going to let you shoot that bird.” Of course I was just joking, cause there was no way in hell I was going to let him shoot Judy either.
Anytime Dad would call me after that trip he always wanted to know how Judy was doing and if I was having any success in releasing her into the wild. I would explain how I would walk around my front and back yard with her on my shoulder, and brag that she would never attempt to leave me.
Folks in the neighborhood would drive by and see me in the yard with a dove on my shoulder, and often blow their horn or wave. I once told Jonette that people were looking at me like I was the “Bird-man of Alcatraz.” Everyone in the family, including me, thought that Judy identified me as her mother, because I had nursed (i.e., fed) her from a young fuzzy little thing and continued to feed her twice a day for several months. We felt that if she thought of me as her mother she might not ever leave my side.
Finally, when she was about 8 or 9 months old, I went back to Petco for more advice. I found the same young man, told him about all my unsuccessful attempts to release Judy into the wild, and said, “I’m certain she believes I’m her mother. She depends on me for food and life, and she may never leave me as long as she thinks I’m her mother.
I told him, “I never got into this relationship thinking I would own her forever, what can I do to get her to fly away?” He looked at me and said, “You don’t know much above doves, do you?” I asked, “What do you mean, I’ve had her so long now I think I know a lot about doves.” He asked, “Have you read any books about raising doves, keeping them in captivity.” I said, “No. Why?” He said, “If you had read up on them you would have learned that a dove picks one mate, and that mate is her (or his) mate for life. She doesn’t think of you as her mother. She thinks of you as her husband, and she plans on spending her life with you.” I chucked and asked, “You’re joking, right?” With a serious nerdy look on his face he said, “No, follow me.” He proceeded to take me over to another aisle, open up a book about birds, flip through several pages, and pointed out that doves, swans, eagles, albatross’, buzzards and several other birds pick a mate that is their mate for life.”
Suddenly, I felt 200 pounds lighter and wanted to fly the skies with my new love life. LOL. I looked at the dude and said, “Seriously, man! Do I look like a dove?” He said, “You don’t look like one to me, but to Judy you do.”
I was now more determined than ever to release Judy and let her find another mate, one of her own kinds. Each day I would walk outside with her, toss her into the sky, and she would always fly a circle or two and land back on my shoulder.
After I had Judy for nine or ten months I had come to the conclusion she would never leave, and that I would continue being a sinner, cheating on the side with someone else who viewed me as their mate. It became a household joke between Jonette and I.
One day I walked into the backyard just like any other previous day, threw Judy into the air and she circled the backyard and returned to my shoulder like normal, just as she had a hundred or more times before. Just for kicks, and in an attempt to catch the attention of motorists passing by, I decided to walk around to my front yards, doing my Bird-man of Alcatraz routine again. I walked to the center of the front yard, tossed Judy into the sky, and she flew like a bat out of hell as fast as she could go, across Buffalo Speedway into a tree in a neighbors front yard — 250 feet away.
During her entire flight towards the tree, which took her no more than 3 or 4 seconds, you could hear me hollering “Juuuudddddddyyyyyyyy, commmeeeeee bacccckkkkkkk!” The tree was full of foliage. She literally disappeared into the thickness and dark shadows of the foliage as the sun was beginning to set. I hollered out again, “Juuuudddddddyyyyyyyy, commmeeeeee bacccckkkkkkk!”
I stood quietly, with numerous mixed emotions flowing through my head, hoping she would fly back to me for one last time. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I realized immediately that the sudden finality of something I’d been wishing to happen for months, was something I really wasn’t prepared for when it finally happened. I stood in the same spot, looking at the tree for another ten minutes, praying for any sign of Judy, hoping she would fly back, but realizing quickly I might not ever see her again.
I was quite for two or three days afterwards. Just looking at her cage or the feeding syringe made me a little sad. It was not like losing a mate or the love of my life, it was more akin to losing our first dog, one that passed away before its time. To make me feel better, Jonette would tell me, “You never know, she might come back to see you one day.” I would say things like, “No, she’s probably dead now, eaten by a cat or a hawk. I never had the chance to teach her how to defend herself in the wild.” Joking of course, trying to milk the situation as much as possible, but sad nonetheless.
I couple of weeks passed and Jonette walked into the bathroom one morning to brush her teeth, looked out the second floor window of our master bath and yelled, “Craig, come here quickly. Judy is outside our window.” I rushed into the bathroom, looked out the window, and 9 feet away on a tree limb was a white-wing dove. I asked, “How do you know it’s her?” She said, “Look at the way she moves her head back and forth, look at the way she’s looking at the window, that’s got to be her!”
Something caught the corner of my right eye, I turned to see where the movement was coming from, and in a tree to the right I saw about twenty more white-winged doves, every one of them identical to the dove outside our window. I looked at Jonette and asked, “What about those doves, maybe one of them is Judy?” She said, “Seriously, doesn’t that dove look like Judy?” I said, “They all look alike. She had no special markings.” To satisfy my curiosity, I walked outside and towards the trees just to see if one of the doves would land on my shoulder. Naturally, none of them did. They flew away quickly, only to return later, just like they still do, today and every day. We’ve always been fortunate to have doves cooing in our trees morning and evening, ever since we bought our house in 1995.
Nine years have passed since Judy left our household for good. Once or twice a year I will walk out the door to my car and find one or two doves sitting in a waxed leaf ligustrum near our door. Most of the time they fly away immediately, but in those rare times when they don’t, I pause, look closely, and ask, “Judy, is that you?” None have ever answered. I guess she wasn’t as smart as Dad thought she was after all.
Mourning Doves typically live five years, the longest one in captivity lived 32 years. White-winged Doves, like Judy, are reported to live 10 to 15 years, and the longest one in captivity lived 25 years. More than likely Judy has passed away. Whether she’s in birdie heaven or still flying the skies of Houston, the long awaited story of Juday, Juday, Juday has finally been written, something I’ve been promising myself I would do for several years.
I hope and pray in my heart of hearts that Judy went on to find a better mate, one that is far slimmer and capable of flying the skies of Houston with her. I hope they’ve had a great life together and have made many little Judy’s in the years that have passed since those lovely months that Judy was part of the Whitley household.
In closing, I should point out that although Rich Little and many other impersonators frequently did their “Juday, Juday, Juday” impersonation of Cary Grant, using it as their “go-to” Grant impression, he never actually said that line or those words in a movie. The movie people think it came from was “Only Angels Have Wings.” In the movie, Grant’s girlfriend Judith (Judy), was played by Rita Hayworth. Grant’s actual line in the movie was, “Hello, Judy. Come on, Judy. Now, Judy.”
Although Grant never said the line “Juday, Juday, Juday,” he once remarked that he was asked to introduce Judy Garland on the Lux Radio Theater one time, and during some banter that preceded his gig he may have uttered the name Judy in succession. When women named Judy would ask him to say, “Juday, Juday, Juday” he was always a great guy and would repeat it to them in good fun. Grant had a great sense of humor but was always perplexed on how the line “Juday, Juday, Juday” caught fire and had a life all of its own. A line he had never said in a movie. He was quoted famously by Rich Little as saying about the impression, “Where is this ‘Juday, Juday, Juday’ coming from? I don’t know anybody named Juday-Juday-Juday. The only Judy I knew was Judy Garland. And when I saw her, there weren’t three of ’em!”
I doubt few people will spend the time to read this long story, but if you’re one of the few that took the time to read it, please feel free to share your comments.