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Steve Sleightholm
Steve's Venezuela Memoirs
The Day Of The Canary
Steve Sleightholm's Venezuela Memoirs
The Day Of The Canary
This short story is not for the faint of heart, animal lovers, or wonderful
people of that ilk. This is a story my sister, Cris, has been threatening to
tell but I convinced her that that it would probably alter forever any positive
feelings that any of the remaining VOB'rs so inclined had of me. It is more for
those who were like me when they were about 11 or 12 years old but aren't
willing to admit it. I know there are others because I ran around with them and
most of them have been mentioned in earlier memories that I have shared.
It was a bright blistering hot Saturday as I recall....not really unusual for
that matter. I was at home in the early afternoon and my parents were out of the
camp on one of their rides. I had come home from the Lavins’ house where I had
been talking to Bobbie Lavin under the garage of their house. They lived just
down the street from us in a corner house. We lived adjacent to the staff
school. Anyway, Bobbie's grandmother lived with them and she loved canaries. In
fact, she raised yellow canaries in several cages that were on a table where the
washing machine and outdoor laundry tub were on the raised cement foundation
that packed the maid's room and was outside the kitchen window of their house --
just like ours and all of the homes on our street. Bobbie did not like his
grandmother and particularly hated the canaries and told me he would like to
kill them.
Bobbie's father, John, had recently published his first book, “A Halo For Gomez”
which was about the dictator preceding Perez Jimenez.
Anyway, Bobbie's grandmother really doted on those birds and she had progressed
to the point where she mated the birds and raised canaries. Oh, they were cute
and their songs would fill the air.
So, I returned home and there I was sitting on the back porch nursing a cold
coke bored with nothing to do really, when I noticed a yellow canary land on the
power lines behind the house. It sat there twittering away and along comes
another and lands beside it.
You know, there is nothing worse than boredom…….specially when you’re young and
restless. I remembered what Bobbie had said about his grandmother’s canaries and
I slowly set my coke down and went into the house and got my pellet gun. It was
a Sheridan Silver Streak that we had smuggled into the country inside a golf bag
full of clubs. I also brought out a tin of pellet and sat down on the porch
steps.
Not to digress too far, but I was a crack shot with the Sheridan. Sheridan was
the most powerful pump pellet gun on the market and very accurate. My brother
and I had been hunting with it for a couple of years ----more stories.
I proceeded to load and pump up the gun, aimed at one of the canaries still on
the line and PFFFFFTTTTT – feathers flew. It fell to the ground. The other
canary stayed on the line and was joined by three more. I repeated the action
dropping another canary. To my amazement, more canaries joined those already on
the line and so I proceeded to pick off canaries. At no point were the birds
disturbed by the clacking of the wooden pump handle against the gun as I stroked
air into the pressure chamber. At some point my sister Cris joined me to observe
the action or the after-carnage. I would load the gun and let her sight down the
barrel and attempt to hit a canary. She was too young and did not have enough
strength to pump the air rifle. Within about twenty minutes there were anywhere
from 11 to 21 canaries – depending upon my sister’s memory versus mine -- in a
soft yellow pile on the ground under the power line and still more sitting on
the line above twittering away.
At some point, I came to my senses or more like, what would happen to me if my
parents found out or the Penhales who lived behind us saw what I was doing or
had done and of course there was my sister who could rat me out. So I stealthily
tossed the little yellow bodies into the trash can which was adjacent to the
killing field. I must have covered them with something to hide them from Mom or
the maid who were the only ones who might discover them. I returned to the porch
and finished my Coke.
No one ever found me out and to her credit, Cris, never ratted me out – she is 7
years younger than me.
There…..I have confessed my sin. I feel better now and after I complete
confessing the remaining sins, I will feel great!!!
.......and so there is the story while out on a jeep drive back in the monte
with my parents my brother and I observe a big bull walking in the field beside
the road and we could see its scrotum swinging back and forth as we approached
and being, like of mind, we quickly loaded and charged the pellet gun....
That’s the way it really was growing up in Tia Juana.
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