A Crow on my Shoulder

I often write about my grandmother, Alice, partially because she's the grandparent I knew the longest, but also because she was quite the character in a pretty amazing and very sassy way.  In later years she'd spend a lot of her time betting with us on reality TV, talking about how handsome Benjamin Bratt is, or clipping interesting newspaper articles for her children and grandchildren to read.

This week I saw an article that I would have clipped for her because of a very fond memory I have from my childhood.  One time my grandmother told me about a special crow, named Sammy, who would trade small shiny objects for other shiny objects.  At my grandmother's instruction I placed a shiny black button in my backyard, and a few days later found it replaced by a coin.   The following week I put out a paper clip and found a glass marble a few days later, and so on.  Turns out my grandmother had given my mom a giant bag of shiny objects (random junk from around her house that could conceivably fit into a crow's beak) and had my mom play the role of Sammy, the Geocaching Crow.

Maleficent and her crow named Diaval or Diablo (depending on the movie) Courtesy of Fan Pop

This week I saw an article about a little girl who has been feeding and receiving gifts from a murder of crows and I immediately thought of Alice.  Gabi has been feeding crows since she was four (she's eight now) and they have been leaving her a number of gifts in return for some time now (to read more click here).  They also have followed her to school, and I assume made her their queen.

While it would be nice to start up a "Sammy" tradition, with the minions, I don't like birds (they freak me out) and I'm not sure how our neighbours would feel about a gang of crows hanging around our house.  I'm also not so sure that I am interested in raising the real life version of Daenerys Targaryen or Maleficent.  All the same it made me think of my grandmother, and smile.  Thank you Gabi for reminding me of my grandmother and Sammy the Crow.  Please don't send your army of birds out to attack me or poop on my car!

Image of Daenerys Targaryen courtesy of Wikipedia.

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