Photoessay #2862 - Petey in the 1970s

Dennis took some enigmatic pictures of my grandmother with her parakeet in the mid 1970s.  I think there were some even more interesting than this one.  Petey, their parakeet, bought by my mother on impulse as a surprise birthday gift.  She had no idea whether my staid grandparents would go for a parakeet.  She figured the worse thing that could happen was that she would end up with a blue bird.

My mother, not shown, would have been in her early 50s; my grandmother Betty Ginsburgh, her mother in law in her mid 70s.

But it was a good call; to everybody's surprise, even their own, they loved the bird and kept him well-cared for for his entire bird life.  When he died they didn't want another. 

Did I pick him out?  Maybe.  Somehow, I have a memory of going to the bird place and picking out a more pastel bird.  But I could be making it up.