Hello Peaches!

One of the great icons of Highview, Ky, is still around!

I went up to the store to get some cream cheese and I remembered a conversation from a few days ago about the nieces and nephews occasionally asking mom how Peaches was doing.

I popped into the store and there, in the same spot, suspended from the ceiling was Peaches!

I was talking with the lady and I was stunned to learn after these years that Peaches is a boy! All these years, we referred to Peaches as a girl.

He's a very large and beautiful cockatoo that has been around since the store opened in 1979. They can only estimate his age at 31, but he may live to be 75 or 100!

The lady working the store mentioned what a curmudgeon he was being this morning as he would not allow her into the cage to clean it out. That's surprising to me as he adored the attention from kids and would always lean his feathery top against the bars so kids could scratch his head.

I tried to prompt him to talk. "Hello Peaches," I said to him. He stared at me blankly.

Back in the day, you could not shut him up. I swear to this day, in 8th grade as I stood there with Mike Baker and either my sister or his sister, Peaches fell off his perch, hit the bottom of the cage and said "God Damn!"

He's a very intelligent bird.

I told her the store had changed a lot. At one time, there were metal shelves that had holes in the back, similar to peg board, and Peaches would stretch his claw and grab it. With the other claw on the perch, he could pull the suspended cage over a few inches until it touched the shelves and then he'd let go so the entire cage would swing!

Apparently they have to have everything out of reach because if Peaches gets ahold of it at night, he'll go nuts and have it shredded by morning. Peaches is the original party animal.

Peaches was not very talkative until I was leaving. After losing my attention, he called out "Hi Peaches," four or five times as I was walking out the door.