The mighty feet and chemicals of a drinking bird.
You know what a drinking bird is, right? It’s a little fellow with a glass tube for a body, filled with a red fluid that causes him(or her) to bob up and down into a glass of (usually) water, causing the appearance of drinking.
It’s science.
They are birds only in the academic sense — they have beaks, and occasionally, as with Harold, a feather glued to the body. They typically sport top hats, which is also a real authentic bird thing.
Drinking birds and their single-minded, monotonous activity were once a great symbol of futility in this society, a point made all the more interesting that they were invented by a PhD. In 1945, George H. Shackley, said PhD, presumably deep in his laboratory of fun and evil things, concocted the drinking bird, to be patented in 1946.
I have always been enamoured with drinking birds, for the same reason that people enjoy dogs — they make me feel better about myself. Just as a dog’s simple-minded and often seemingly random antics give their owners a feeling of superiority, intellignece and dominance, the drinking bird, too, makes me feel superior.
Any creature who spends the entirety of its existence poking its head in and out of a glass of something is dumb. Dumber than me, and it drinks more too.
Another way I am superior. “You lush,” I often slur at Harold, as he dips his head repeatedly in and out of his pint glass, “I may be six whiskeys in, but you, you don’t know when to stop.”
How impolite. I’ve forgotten to let on that Harold is my drinking bird. Gentle Reader, meet Harold. Harold, meet Gentle Reader.
Hi, I'm Harold. Good to meet you, reader.
It’s so nice to have a little pal who can amuse you tirelessly and match you drink for drink — nay, outlast you.
So imagine my surprise when, about two years ago, I brought Harold into the newsroom only to have the wet-behind-the-ears staff of the Daily look on in wonder and muse, “What is that?”
Naturally, the only recourse was to leave Harold in the newsroom for the educational benefit of the news tots.
I set Harold up, and appointed Kaajal, then a staff writer, as the guardian of Harold. Copy Editor Sarah occasionally took a shift. One time, Sarah came running up to me in the most panicked mode I had ever seen her in between horrified inhalations breathing the words “Harold is doing … something … new!”
I returned to Harold’s side to see him flopping back and forth in the wrong direction, apparently drunk from too many helpings of Spartan Daily tap water – complete with sediment and mystery particles.
“You lush!” I screamed at him, as I dried the poor sod out.
Harold is still in the Daily, where I’ve decided he shall remain, for the benefit of those around him who don’t appreciate the things he does for us.
And that is why Harold is thing #5 I’ll miss from the Spartan Daily. Sure, the years have been tough to Harold. He has lost an eye in his debauchery. His hat sometimes falls off. His leathery skin has seen better days. But Harold, I salute you.
You keep those Journalism kids in line while I’m gone, will ya? I’m sure you’re more of a legacy than I’ll ever be to that institution. Long after all my editing and writing editors have been forgotten by time — long after every column I have written hangs by a tattered spread of forgottenness, Harold will still be in the Spartan Daily newsroom.
Farewell, dear Harold.
*Special thanks to Dona Nichols for providing dear Harold in the first place.
Tags: Dona Nichols, drinking bird, Harold, Kaajal, San Jose, SJSU, Spartan Daily
