What's orange and sounds like a parrot? A carrot

Many years ago, while working in the county courthouse, I made it a point to gobble a sandwich at lunchtime and then head out on the streets for a post-prandial stroll.

There was a bar on York Rd called The Crease Bar and Grill, and out front, they brought a caged parrot every day when the weather was favorable.

This bird was very intelligent and educated - he must have gone to PollyTechnic - but it seemed that he was half shark.

He'd talk your ears off.

I made a sport of teaching him to say a then-popular expression  ("Reagan lied!") and would enjoy bantering with him as I stopped to chat.

I always wondered what happened to that bird and I think he might have landed in Florida.

Police in Lake Worth Beach responded to a call for "someone screaming for help" inside a house recently, and when they got there, the homeowner was out in the driveway working on his car.

That is exactly how I picture 90% of Florida to be, by the way. Guys in white a-shirts with wrenches in their hand, laboring under the hoods of old Fords.

But he told the officers he could handle the matter by stepping inside, and he did so, returning with a shrieking Psittaciform on his finger.

And he was still screaming for help!

One last parrot story that country singer Mel Tillis told on himself, and he swore it was true.  Mel was in the Air Force, way over in Japan, and wanted to send his mother something nice for Christmas. So he picked out a nice parrot and sent him in his cage back stateside to Mama Tillis.

After Christmas, he had a chance to call his mother, and asked her if she had gotten her gift.  "Yes, Melvin, I got him, and he was delicious!"

"Mama, you weren't supposed to roast that bird! He wasn't a chicken, he was a parrot, and he could talk!"

And Mrs Tillis replied, "Then he should have said something!"