I saw a CV-19 pandemic post today.

It was of a pigeon sitting up on a roof.

He was overlooking the bare city and telling the pigeon perched next to him how bummed he was because there were no cars or people around to poop on.  

It reminded me of a time, BP (before pandemic), when I was witness to a Pigeon-Person war.

I was not a participant, only an observer.

The pigeons? They were my friends.

The person? I knew him quite well.

It happened while were living in a little Hamlet of a town on the Monterey Peninsula called Pacific Grove. 

Lover’s Point Park was a manicured green, grassy park, with bright colored flowers scattered about shooting up from clumps of grass, cacti and other large plants. Huge, old Eucalyptis trees extended over the cliff and shaded the sandy beach below.

The entire park extended into the water where Monterey Bay and Pacific Ocean come together.

If you watched “Big Little Lies,” sometimes there were scenes shot in Lover’s Point Park.

Like any place with water, there were lots of seagulls and pigeons. 

Many hung-out in the park and took every opportunity to beg, borrow or squawk for people food.

I think I’ll never forget the sight of a dive-bomber who flew low, picked up a bag of Doritos from a blanket and was gone, bag in beak!

What a party that must have been!

     

Because we were only one long block up from the park, they sometimes would stop for a siesta on our roof, mostly piegeons.

I fed the birds.
I fed the little squirrels that scurried around and I was OK with the beautiful deer coming up on our porch and eating our flower tops.

There were of course, signs with rules about not feeding them.

I DO follow some rules……………..sometimes.

But…..I was  local.

They knew me.

They counted on me. 

Bobfone has never liked pigeons.

He calls them flying rats.

He hated when he drove up the driveway from work in the evenings and pigeons would be sitting in a row along the edge of the garage roof looking down at him.

He threw things at them.

Mostly tennis balls but once out of desperation, I saw him throw somebody’s wadded up socks he found in his car.

He never hit one.

I think he knew injuring one of them could mean we’d be nursing a pigeon back to health in a box.

I think his throws were just to scare them away. 

Usually when a ball came flying up at them, they either just kinda ducked or fluttered their wings a little bit. 

But they for sure, were not scared of him and rarely did they bother to fly away.

He kept a bucket of tennis balls by the edge of the driveway.

It was his thing.

Before he came inside every night, he threw a couple tennis balls at MY friends!

The actual war began one evening when my sweet man parked his car in the driveway instead of the garage.

He threw a couple token tennis balls, they ducked and he came in the house.

It was a Friday night, date night. 

Gianni Pizza night.

I was ready and waitin.’

A kiss HI and we were out the door, down the porch steps and headed to the car.

The closer we got, the bigger the white splats became.

Not spots…splats!

The black hood of his car was covered with white splats…..kinda looked like polka-dots.

BIG polka-dots………big, white pigeon poop polka-dots. 

Believe me when I tell you that Bobfone is one of the most mellow people I’ve ever been lucky enough to know in my entire life.

I mean MELLOW.

But everybody has their limits and pigeons were his.

They made him kinda……………….crazy?

He was enraged.

I stood still…..mouth shut TIGHT and watched.

He walked over, picked up the hose and turned on the water but instead of pointing it at the hood of his car, he aimed up at the pigeons.

They’d been sitting up on the roof watching and if I didn’t know better, I’d say they were amused.

They got wet.

They flew away!

From that day forward, the tennis balls became a murder weapon and he was throwing to kill.

Every now and then, he’d forget and leave his car in the driveway.

The pigeons didn’t forget, they made sure to leave their autographs.

The crazy strange part is….. I left my car in the driveway often, sometimes even with the top down and never once did I get bombed. 

NOT ONCE, you guys!

You think pigeons don’t know?

I never threw one tennis ball and I’ll bet they even heard me often telling Bobfone not to do that.

I figured the battle was never ending but then …..there was something else about the pigeons and this was disturbing to even me.

Without our knowledge or even being allowed to vote…..our house became the  designated floozie bird brothel of the neighborhood. 

Casual bird sex, day and night on our roof-top and even worse……….they’d  found an open spot in the eaves and worked their way up and into the attic and set up shop smack over our bedroom.  

Daytime was no big deal but night after night listening to “customers” flying in and hooking up with the birds-of-pleasure, got to be too much for both of us and tennis balls wasn’t gonna do it.

At first we banged on the wall and ceiling.

That worked……………..for seconds and then right back at it…..a rhythmic beat and screaching sounds as horny pigeons flew in and out of the house of pigeon prostitution, most all night long.

Something had to be done and we couldn’t do it.

The driveway was steep and the pitch of the roof was sharp and 2 stories up.

I wasn’t gonna agree to hold the ladder while my sweet man climbed up.

Nope, this was a job for…..the landlord!

He arrived the next week-end, climbed up like a monkey and patched the hole closed.

I might add, this man was probably 80 years old.  

One of those energizer-bunny kind of men that just don’t quit!

Hooray, end of story……………NOT!

Something horrible happened that very night.

We heard a bird crying in the attic .

A pigeon must have gotten trapped up there when landlord patched the hole.

There was a patch-pecking-pigeon on the outside frantically trying to free the prisoner.  

It was horrible sad and I cried.

Landlord was NOT gonna come back from L.A. to let a trapped pigeon out.

We had to leave the TV on all night to drown out the cries of the trapped pigeon and the pecking of the rescuer.   

Night after night for about a week we listened as the cry became weaker and weaker until there was no more sounds and finally it was over and the other pigeon left and didn’t return.

None of them came back to our roof.

UNTIL…..

The crisis had been over for a few weeks and now my sweet man could safely leave his car in the driveway.

And then one afternoon it happened. 

We were headed out the door, down the porch steps amd toward the car when we both stopped at once and stared in disbelief…….there they were, all lined up across the garage roof and the black Solara hood was covered with Pigeon Poop!

The warriors had returned for a final battle.

That could have been…..should have been the end but there was one last thing…..

As my sweet man walked toward the hose, the pigeons all took flight right smack over his head and yep……they splattered him.  

And not even a spot on me!

So, you can go ahead and don’t believe me.

You can think I made this all up but I didn’t.

Go ahead and think that birds are just birds.

Actually, they ARE just birds but, they DO think and they DON’T forget.

And remember pigeons fly hundreds of miles to their destination and then return. 

ALL WITHOUT SIRI!!!!!!