I was around 6-7 yrs, the late '50's....somehow we ended up with a parakeet, who knows whose idea it was: dad didn't like animals at all and mom adored cats....so we had cats. But somehow we ended up with this parakeet...he was this light blue color, the folks had these high hopes he was gonna talk, so mom spends hours talking to him. Nada, zip, zilch.....nd the poor little fucker's best friend was our tomcat, a monster un-neutered orange tabby(no fat, 17 lbs) who bullied all the dogs on the block, this cat was a true predator and he ruled this block of suburbia, always fighting with some critter and winning. Anyway, the bird lived in his cage and obviously the cat wanted to eat him so the cat was always near the cage; the bird was terrified of humans but loved that cat and would chirp and trill when the cat was hanging around
