OWL AIRLINES

When Grumps was a little boy he lived in a big old Inn and they had so much room in the old building that there was room for a lot of pets.  This was good but sometimes it got to be a bit too much---what with the cleaning up (poop) and feeding, and exercising them and, in fact, playing with them.

So what was supposed to be fun sometimes was a full time job.  And almost every day he would hear the following from his momma.

“Grumps have you fed the goldfish?”

“Grumps, have you cleaned George the hamster’s cage?”

“Have you fed the turtles? ---put birdseed and fresh water in Howsyer the parakeet’s cage? ---taken Spooky for a dog walk? ---fed the ducks and baby chickens? ---fed and combed Mr. Bones your donkey?

Well, too many pets and it seemed like the work would never end.  What Grumps needed was a self-sufficient pet, one that could take care of itself.

The reason was that he had other summer jobs to do, like that newspaper delivery job, and running to the grocery store for his parents and the one that he really hated---picking up and delivering the mail from the post office to his parents and all his relatives in town.  He had to go to the post office everyday (which was about a mile away) with a little cloth bag over his shoulder and ask Mr. Lovell, the postmaster, “Could you please give me the mail for The Cairnses, my grandparents P.B. and Nettie Roop, my great uncle Raymond Brown, my great aunt Kitty Nusbaum, my Uncle Chub and Aunt Mary Roop, and my aunt and uncle Clay and Ester Hough and Aunts Anna, Bessie and Helen?

This wasn’t the summer vacation he had been looking forward to.  Too much pet care and feeding and way too many mail deliveries.  By the time he was finished tending to the pets and delivering the mail, he was really tired and almost too tired to play baseball or even have a catch when his dad got home from work.

Then one day he was reading his BOYS’ LIFE magazine and on the back cover he saw the advertisement.   OWLS FOR SALE!  The advertisement said, “Buy yourself an owl and you’ll never have to go to the post office or deliver a letter again. These sturdy, loving birds will be your best friend, loyal, soft and cuddly and so smart that they can deliver your mail.”

Now, this was years before an owl named Hedwig became Harry Potter’s mail delivering, loving friend. So, it wasn’t like Grumps could take a Harry Potter book to his parents to plead for another pet by saying, “See, this owl Hedwig isn’t really a pet, its Harry’s friend, and IT DELIVERS THE MAIL!’

Why, because the Harry Potter books weren’t written yet and so all Grumps had to work with was an advertisement for a $20 owl on the back of a kid’s magazine called BOYS’ LIFE.

He decided that he was going to have to make a pretty good argument for getting a pet. And it wouldn’t be a PET that would ever work with his parents. This bird had to be a mail delivering working owl that would fly around the town of New Windsor, dropping letters off on people’s front porches.

He knew he’d better be prepared when his daddy said, “Grumps, suppose this mail delivering owl drops more than a letter on someone’s front porch?”

“No, this owl will not poop on porches!”

“How do you know?” Grump’s mother said.

“Because, I will personally take it for a flight on the school grounds before its time to pick up the mail. This owl will deliver the mail and deliver with its poop tank on empty!” Grumps said.

“And where will this owl sleep?”

“Well, there’s a nice big birdhouse where that crow used to live on that tree right outside my bedroom window, it has a little perch, a feeder and everything.”

“You certainly have all the answers and I suppose you have the money to buy this owl!”

“Yes, Mr. Hyde paid me for taking over his paper route while they were on vacation and so I have $35.  I can pay $20 for the owl, have enough left over for feed for my new bird and a good bit extra when I collect from all those people who will be getting their mail from OWL AIRLINES.

“That’s what your mail delivery is going to be called?” Grump’s father said.

“Yes, OWL AIRLINES and our motto is, “We stamp behind our deliveries!”    

And that’s the way it started.  The owl was ordered, and paid for.  Then Grumps dreamed nightly about the owl, then waited at the post office every day for weeks to pick up his new pet bird.  The day it came and the post master helped him open the big wooden box with the breathing holes in it was very exciting for Grumps.

Exciting, until he saw his new mail carrier. He was expecting a big white bird like the one in the photograph on the ad on that magazine. What he got was a tiny little brown bird, no more than two pounds in weight with ruffled feathers and an extra sharp crooked beak.

The postmaster just laughed and laughed.  “You think this little thing is going to carry mail? Ha! It couldn’t carry a 2 cent postage stamp!”  Mr. Lovell said.

Grumps fought back the tears.  This was not the owl he’d dreamed of. This was a midget of an owl, and his parents were not going to be pleased for several reasons---one, he had too many pets already and two, this bird would not pay for itself as a mail carrier----way too small, and frankly not very, even by New Windsor’s standards, attractive.

But on the way home as Grumps worried about what his parents were going to say he realized that a certain someone had hopped out of his box and crawled up on his shoulder.

“So, you want to be friends?” Grumps said.

“Who?” the owl said.

“You!” Grumps answered and pretty soon they were playing that game all the way home.  And by the time they were almost there Grumps had decided on a name.  He would call him Albert, Al for short.

“I’m calling you Al,” he said to the feathered creature perched there on his shoulder.

“Who?” Al said.

“You,” Grumps laughed.

This might not have been the biggest, or the prettiest, or the right color owl but it was showing signs of being fun. So, Grumps decided to make up more questions that the owl could always answer---like “Can anyone hear me?” “Who?”  “You!”

The grand introduction of Al to his parents was rather interesting.

Grumps’ father took one look at the little ratty feathered owl and said, “That bird couldn’t carry a postage stamp let alone a bag of letters!”

Al perched there on Grumps’ shoulder said, “Who?”

That made Grumps’ father laugh and say, “You!”

Finally when things settled down Grumps pledged to train him to hold his poop, to fatten his owl up, and to fly him every day until he got stronger.  Grumps said, “Daddy, before you know it New Windsor will have the best post office delivery owl in the country!”

“This will bring the newspapers and TV stations to our little town,” Grumps said.

Grumps’ father just rolled his eyes and didn’t say anything. But true to his word Grumps---after feeding all his pets and delivering the mail---went to Al’s house and whistled up at the bird. Al hopped off his perch, flew down and landed on Grumps’ shoulder and off they went to the school ground for flight practice. Within a week Al was able to hold his poop, fly loop-de-loops, take off and land from and on Grumps’ shoulder.

“Well, you can do all that and even know how to taxi to a stop,” Grumps said, but can you carry a letter in that crooked beak of yours!”

“Who?” Al said.

“You heard me, YOU!”  Grumps said.

And so they started with an envelope, a small one that Grumps put on a ledge behind his house. Then he whistled and Al flew out of his tree house, hopped on his perch, took off, swooped down, snared the letter and took off.”

“Where are you going,” Grumps shouted.

And this time when Al said, “who?”  he opened his beak and the letter came floating down.  This mail carrying practice was not as easy as Grumps had hoped. The owl had gained weight, he was bigger and stronger, and he was such a good owl and he could really fly---had all the moves. But could he ever carry a bag in his beak and deliver to all those people in New Windsor on Grumps’ route?

After several weeks his father suggested that Al was a cute pet but that he just didn’t think he’d be able to deliver!  Grumps went to bed that night worrying about Al and how he’d ever be able to do his job and carry that big mail bag that Grumps carried.  But then, while he was sleeping, he had a very interesting dream.

He sawAl floating around with the blue sky and clouds behind him. In the dream Grumps could see that Al had something in his beak, not much but something. Then suddenly Grumps woke and jumped straight up in bed, “He doesn’t have to carry the big bag, he can fly, that means he’s so fast he can make 30 or 40 trips to houses delivering the mail in less time than it takes me to pedal my bicycle up to all those houses with that big bag hanging on it!

The next day, bright and early, he took Al for a bike ride and showed him all the houses on his route, then one by one gave the bird, who was very smart, the names, of the people---“This is Chubby Roop’s house,” he said.

This didn’t happen overnight. There were a few mistakes and missed deliveries along the way but within several weeks the postmaster could give the owl several letters, name the delivery location and the bird would be off, fly in, drop the envelopes on the porch and be back in minutes to the post office for the next delivery.

Well, the truth was that the men and ladies in the post office loved this AL’S AIRLINES delivery. It was fun, unique and before they knew it the New Windsor post office was getting national attention----reporters from newspapers and TV stations were coming to New Windsor to photograph, write about and video this amazing mail delivering owl.

Grumps couldn’t have been prouder but the highlight of the adventure came when a TV reporter asked Grumps who was responsible for this amazing delivery of the mail.

And later that night on the 11 o’clock national news millions of people heard the question. Then they heard Al the owl, who was perched on Grumps’ shoulder say,”Who?”

“Oh, you must not have heard me,” the reporter said, “I asked who was responsible for this amazing Owl?” And again Al said, “Who?”

And that’s when Grumps, right there on national TV, patted his feathered friend on the head and said,” You Al, yes, you!”