Growing up in Our Town in the gentler and simpler 1950's was a wonderful experience for yours truly and all my buddies.
Outdoor activities were the order of the day, almost from sunup to sundown every weather-permitting day when I wasn't inside Westwood Elementary School, just 3 blocks west of our home on West 4th Avenue.
Because I was a "kinda" only child (brother and sister much older than me, and gone from the homestead most of my "formative" years), I filled my days with lots of activities. Very high on my list were raising all sorts of critters, and this hobby didn't stop when my father built our new home in the "country" in 1959, and we moved in on West 9th Avenue, west of Western Road. We always had a family dog, and I remember a female beagle (Creash) at the earlier home, and a female Eskimo spitz (Kodie) at the newer home. The other common pet I had at both homes were pigeons, and I raised them for many years. I was so into pigeons, I actually entered them, and won some ribbons and prize money several times at the Payne County Free Fair. I also made lots of Our Town friends through pigeon raising, as other folks raised them, too. We even had a very active local pigeon club and regular meetings to discuss the hobby.
For awhile, my father, Col. C.H.Breedlove, and I also raised another very unusual bird pet; one quite different from our ever-present pigeon population, all housed in the large wire flight cages around our two homes.
A GREAT HORNED OWL, dear friends. And, even though I was never sure of our pet owl's gender, I named it/her "Alice", the great horned owl. How original is that name, huh??
My father and I "found" Alice in a heavily wooded area off Mehan Road, southeast of Our Town, during one of our frequent father/son wildlife outings. I am not sure just how we came up with her, but possibly we rescued her after she had fallen out of her nest. I do remember she was almost fully feathered out, but wasn't old enough to fly on her own yet. My father was convinced we could raise her outside our home in one of our cages near our pigeons. At my young age, I was totally thrilled we were going to have an owl as a member of our family. Without too much trouble that day, we were able to get our prize wild owl home.
At this point for all those wondering, YES, Alice grew up at our place with much care and encouragement from us! My father, being the resourceful person he always was, assumed our wild owl needed wild food. With that forethought, we would regularly drive the rural roads around Our Town, and both train our eyes to search for fresh, hopefully, small animal, road kill. Once a possible specimen was located, it was my job to get out of the passenger seat, examine the potential food source for freshness, and, if it was acceptable, place it in the trunk of our car inside a gunny (i.e., burlap) sack. We would then take our discovery home, and feed it to Alice. She always seemed delighted with our food choices for her!
For her exercise, as she grew older, we would take her out of her large wire cage, and tie one of her legs to a thick and very long rope. The extra length of this twine rope would allow her to fly short distances to exercise her growing wings. We had to take extreme caution when putting her on or taking her off the rope. Most of our caution was exercised by us wearing huge, thick leather gloves, as her talons were incredibly sharp and long. The talons, along with her large pointed beak, always presented a potential fresh wound for us; thus our wearing the protective gloves.
One morning, I went outside to routinely check on Alice, and put her inside her cage. Because Alice was nocturnal, we always let her exercise after dark. As fate would have it, this particular morning, Alice was GONE! On careful inspection, it was determined she no longer wanted to call our home her home, and she picked the twine rope knot off, freeing herself, and flying away. As best I remember, we had Alice for several months, but we think she stayed in our "neighborhood" after her night escape, because we heard lots of daytime crow screaming down by the creek nearby for several days. Any wildlife person knows crows and owls are not friends, and a group of crows will squawk loudly when they locate an owl in daylight hours.
As I reflect back, I know I missed Alice being around our home, but probably quickly filled my pet void with rabbits, guinea pigs or some other boyhood pet. Such was our local life in those simpler and gentler times.
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