Thursday, June 06, 2002

What a beautiful bird! I was wondering about the word piliated, and found that it comes from the Latin pletus, wearing a pileus, from pleus, felt cap. When I was Ariana's age, in 3rd grade, we had an assignment from Miss Calvert to pick a bird and draw it. I chose the red-headed woodpecker. I remember using colored pencils and spending a great deal of time looking at the photo in the encyclopedia, and much erasing and beginning again. There was a boy in my class named Jimmy White. He drew a beautiful bird picture. I can't remember what bird it was! but oh! it was so realistic, it nearly flew off the page. There was a big hoopla, because Miss Calvert did not believe that Jimmy could have drawn such a perfect picture. After all, he was only 8 years old. His parents were called in, and they confirmed that he did it by himself. I still wonder about him and if he was able to develop his obvious talent, after such an embarassing mess. That was the year that President Kennedy was shot.

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