Deceitfulness of Lies – a warning

~ Gracie Rockland

How frailly veiled the soul that lies.
No image, no glitter, no gold - that hides -
Can change swallow judgment to wise.

Think you are safe? Don’t you know the fear?
Lies themselves have their works, they sear,
They deceive, and vision with dimness smear.

Deceitfulness of Lies

HomeGrown

A Crow named Jerry

Jerry was our pet crow. Actually, there were two of them, Tom and Jerry. My brothers had found them pitifully peeping after their nest was knocked from tree. (They never admitted to deliberately knocking it from the tree, but...) They brought them home to mom to see if they could be returned to their mommy crow.

Mom said that once a human hand had touched them the mother would not accept them back. The human scent would prevent that. So, the two-orphaned crows became part of our menagerie, which at that time was 2 dogs, 2 Siamese cats, and assortment of rats, a guinea pig and the growing insect collection.

Tom refused to eat and weakened and died but Jerry, in his soon to be infamous tenacity, thrived!

Jerry was a card! He lived in my oldest brothers closet. James
willingly dusted the droppings from his clothes before wearing them. Jerry could talk, well, he could say "Hello" "Hello, hello" This would amuse him greatly and he would laugh at himself, "Hello, hello. Ha, ha hah ha haaa."

He loved the piano, the typewriter and water! He loved to tease the cats and we loved to tease him! Frankly, why the two feline predators submitted to his abuse was beyond any of us!

It is not precise to say he loved the piano. What he loved was
picking the ivories off the keys and hiding them. My mother never found 3 of them.

The typewriter ribbon was too much of temptation for him. He would pull it out yank by yank. You can imagine the pile! But he would give himself away by ringing the bell. "Shoo!" "Hello, hello. Ha hah ha ha haaa."

Once he figured out how to turn the water on in the bathroom sink, the bathroom got a baptism regularly. Jerry would splash
and splash, such fun! He never did learn to turn the water off.

On Sundays, after church, we had a large midday meal. Jerry would beg for table scraps and accept choice strips of meat offerings from the roast. He would hide these around the edges of the livingroom rugs, where the dogs would find them. When Jerry went back to inspect his stash he first looked puzzled then would mumble something probably obscene in crow talk.

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The Siamese cats got very weary of him. Minding their own cat
business napping leisurely on a livingroom chair with their long
tempting tails draped over the side, Jerry would take a running leap at those tails (his wings were clipped) and he would latch on and swing thru the air, then go squawking down the hall.

Now Jerry could only get 3 marbles in his mouth. So we gave him
four. He was darn sure not going to go hide those 3 and leave that fourth one there for someone to steal while he was away.

But Jerry exacted his revenge. When the 4 of us kids would get down in the middle of the livingroom for a game of monopoly, Jerry would skulk around waiting for his opening. He would dash through the middle of the board and grab a piece and take off down the hall. We would need to chase him down for it to continue the game, much to his delight!

"Hello, hello, helloooo. HA HA HAAA HAAAAA!"

Jackie - written Apr. 10, 2003

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A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.

~ William Wordsworth

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