1986: The Cutting Crew

My dad grew up with homing pigeons. In 1976, he moved my brothers an my mom out of Appleton, and built a house in the "sticks" of Darboy. In the back yard, he built a pigeon coop. There was a local pigeon racing club he became a part of. The pigeon club was pretty cool. They had a big party every year, with kids my age. They also had a spot in the newspaper to say who won the races.

Essentially you would drive your team of racing pigeons to a location on the map all at the same time, and a timer started. Once (and I'm not sure) the first or all of your pigeons make it back to your coop, time is compensated in some way... and it's scored. Winning such races brings money and your name in the local newspaper.

Mike worked at this huge bird store, and built a bird room in the basement, where he would attempt to breed finches and ring neck doves and all kinds of birds. The coolest one was a Blue front Amazon parrot named "Sonny." The parrot was cool because it could talk and repeat words. I got the biggest kick out of it. His white Moloucan Cockatoo named Princess. It ended up getting sick, losing all its feathers. Princess died of a disease that's like that bird's version of AIDS called "beak and feather syndrome." The bird caught it from temporarily living with a mate that Mike owned only briefly and sold off. We had a parakeet named Oscar that we kept in the dining room. My dad taught Oscar to say "bullshit" and "fuck you." My mom used to (in a small fit of rage) yell to God that she was "so sick and tired of that frickin' bird." As a kid, that brought quite a chuckle. We thought it was hilarious... any opportunity to laugh my butt off as a kid was taken full advantage of.

Both Tommy and Mike worked at my dad's dental lab. Sometimes I'd find myself there too, doing small stuff like taking out garbage. Mike would find plaster models of people's teeth, and taught me how to drill a hole through it so he could wire into the birdcages. I'm not sure if they scratched their claws on them or what. All I knew was that it was fun.



The song"Just Died in your arms tonight" was a pretty big radio song. It was all over the radio, and more often then not, you'd hear it in the car. I think about riding in the station wagon with Mike and one particular story:

Mike was involved with my Dad's hobby a little bit. We all had responsibilities around the house, and one of Mike's, especially in high school, was feeding the pigeons, and exercising them. On this occasion, Mike drove the pigeons far away to have them fly back. We drove a few hours southwest of our house. I remember seeing a water tower with an indian head painted on it, which I now realize was Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

We were driving all over for some reason. I'm not sure if we were lost or what. almost ran out of gas looking for diesel. Mike was sort of freaking out. We'd pull into a gas station, they wouldn't have diesel, and we'd have to find a different gas station. When we let the birds out, Amy lost jelly shoe and we were driving back before she said anything... and we had to go back for it. I don't remember stopping at any exact place to let the birds out, so how we found the place again to look for her shoe was impossible in my young mind. I think we ended up finding the shoe, and it would have been way too long a drive home to not have found it.

1984 "Lights Out"... establishing a pecking order

Lights Out - Peter Wolf

Peter Wolf's "Lights Out" was a big hit in 1984. Unluckily, when you are the youngest sibling of four - it doubles as an excuse to to prank your little brother. "Lights Out" became what they sing when pulling someone's hat down over their eyes. Although I have memories of Tommy, Mike and Amy doing this to me (and eachother for that matter) I can still hear Mike singing "Lights Out" in my head.

The act of pulling someone's hat over their eyes was a total kid's pecking order establishment. It was something simple you could do to someone short of making fun of them or even worse beating them up. Totally harmless. It is sort of humiliating and funny at the same time. While it's always been popular to do this sort of act (especially among boys), now there was a theme song for it! The first time, the prank funny to everyone involved. The second time, the victim grins as if he/she should have known it was coming. By the third and fourth time, the victim is greatly peeved.

Humans are not the only animals to do this. Deer spar, elephants have pushing contests, and kids prank each other. Butts of a prank establish a pecking order among kids. I didn't make these rules, but I was forced to live by them. Getting away with it unscathed put you higher in the pecking order. Blocking an attempt, etc. possibly prevents you from other (and possibly worse) pranks in the future. This is right around the time you had to pick teams using the "eenee meenee miney mow" scheme. And you are NOT IT! I was no bully by any means, but in my circles I did what was necessary to not be the runt.

Aside from the social connotations to my childhood, revisiting this song is still kind of fun. The beat has a feel-good energy to it. I do however wonder what exactly this song was written about. "Lights out" in terms of my already wired imagination still doesn't provoke any visual images other than pulling someone's hat down... the permanent effects of childhood!