Mithril and Me: A Love Story

By Laurel A. Rockefeller

Mithril and Me is the true story of the special bond that forms between human and bird. Beginning with her first bird, a budgerigar (parakeet) named Luke and across the decades since, Laurel A. Rockefeller takes you on a special journey as only she can, learning and growing as a person along the way and loving each bird that comes into her life. Heartfelt, affectionate, and honest, “Mithril and Me” will warm your heart, make you cry, and inspire you along the way.

Filled with personal photos from forty years of life with birds. Perfect for the animal lover in your life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Laurel A. Rockefeller
• Release date: Jul 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005715588

Laurel A. Rockefeller

Born, raised, and educated in Lincoln, Nebraska USA Laurel A. Rockefeller’s passion for animals comes through in everything she writes. First self-published in 2012 as social science fiction author (the Peers of Beinan series), Laurel has expanded her work into the animal care/guide, history, historical fiction, and biography genres.Find Laurel’s books in digital, paperback, and hardcover in your choice of up to ten languages, including Welsh, Chinese, and Dutch. Audio editions are published in all four available languages for audible: English, French, Spanish, and German.Besides advocating for animals and related environmental causes, Laurel A. Rockefeller is a passionate educator dedicated to improving history literacy worldwide, especially as it relates to women’s accomplishments. In her spare time, Laurel enjoys spending time with her cockatiels, travelling to historic places, and watching classic motion pictures and classic television series.

Book preview

Mithril and Me: A Love Story

By Laurel A. Rockefeller

Cover art: Laurel A. Rockefeller kisses Mithril shortly before leaving to perform medieval Chinese music at an SCA event.

The following is a true story taken from the best memories of Laurel A. Rockefeller. Any inaccuracies are purely unintentional. In some cases, names have been changed to protect the identities of those involved.

Copyright © 2021 by Laurel A. Rockefeller. All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

Chapter One: Parakeets

Chapter Two: My First Cockatiel

Chapter Three: An Unexpected Opportunity

Chapter Four: A White Cockatiel in the Current Middle Ages

Chapter Five: Aragorn’s Exit

Chapter Six: Small Town Pennsylvania

Chapter Seven: Arwen Arrives

Chapter Eight: Flock is Family

Chapter One: Parakeets

Luke: My First Bird

April, 1981. After saving every penny, nickel, dime, or quarter I could find, beg for, earn from doing chores, or otherwise acquire (including picking up aluminum litter off the streets and trading for cash) I find myself with about $16.00. As usual, my mom and I go through the local papers for garage sale ads, looking for deals. One ad catches my eye: a mention of a bird cage for sale. Mom is feeling nice that morning. Despite our 900 am appointment at church, she is willing to take me to that garage sale to check out of the cage. We arrive just after they open. The cage is there and I’m excited. It’s only 16 x 16 x 20 – barely adequate as a sleeping cage, though I didn’t know that at the time – but I have enough money! I talk to the owner and tell my story. Somehow the owner is impressed and asks me for just $1 for the cage – a bargain! Happily I give him the dollar –my dollar from my hard work – and off we go! My heart is singing. I might, just might, have enough for the bird too!

The day continues. My church AWANA team assembles at 900 am to go to Omaha for what is called the AWANA Olympics. It’s a sort of sport or game competition between churches that also have AWANA youth programs. Despite my deficiencies in sport ability, my team does well. At the end of the day we lose by just ONE point. My family has followed the church van and I leave with my mother in her car to come back home to Lincoln.

Counting my money still in my pocket (I still wore trousers then), I ask my mother about the bird. In the shopping center closest to our house is a Woolco discount department store. I don’t remember much about the store (which became a Half Price Store just a few years later), except for the pet section just indoors from their outdoor patio where they sold garden supplies in the warmer months. Your classic discount department store setup that you can still find at some Walmart locations. Two or three aisles of pet supplies – dog, cat, small rodent, and small bird. Food. Toys. Food bowls. Collars and leashes. Bird perches. Grit and grit paper. Cuttlebones. Aquariums and related supplies. Basic fare, but largely essentials. On one wall they had several glass tanks containing fish, small rodents, and of course BUDGERIGARS whom Americans call parakeets (which was the word I used until the 1990s when I became much more science literate). These little parakeets were in two different tank-cages: basic and fancy. The fancy parakeets cost about $17 if I remember right. These were the prettier birds, especially the blue ones that really stood out. The basic cage had green parakeets with yellow heads. Those were $14. With only about $15 left, I had a choice: buy a green parakeet or wait until I had more money so I could buy one from the fancy selection.

After waiting well over a year saving and working hard – not one cent or dollar given to me ever went towards candy, gum, or other treat my brother and my peers indulged in – I was done waiting. I pointed to the bird I wanted and the clerk used a small net to grab him for me and put him in a little cardboard take home box. From a shelf I picked up a small, 10 oz. box of Hartz parakeet food, and I think a bit of grit as well. I gave the clerk every penny I had. But I was short just a little.

Compassionately my mother said it was okay. She paid the remaining balance for me, rewarding my hard work. $2-3 dollars from her when I had paid for absolutely everything else needed. It was a life lesson about saving money that every child needs to learn.

Coming home that afternoon I was quick to setup the cage, put some paper into the bottom tray, and of course fill the food dishes. I let my bird – Luke – out of his box and into his new cage. After he had some time to calm down from the change of home, I worked at finger taming Luke. Time out of the cage soon followed. By the end of April we were buddies and played together – in my room exclusively. Mom’s orders!

My mother was decidedly NOT a bird person. In fact, she was terrified of birds, especially when they did what birds are supposed to do: fly. It was flight that really made my mother most opposed to my unwelcome fascination with parrots. She was convinced that Luke was going to attack her and hurt her – just like the birds in the 1963 Alfred Hitchcock horror film. Watching that film with her classmates when it first came out left mom with traumatic scars towards anything and everything relating to birds of any species. For my mother, Luke was a hated pest. In hindsight she probably made that list of requirements I had to meet before I got Luke because she wanted to all but guarantee I would not get him at all. What child really wants a bird that badly?

Clearly she underestimated me!

When, three months after my family sent me to Bible camp in Genoa Nebraska for a week, it was Luke, not any member of my family that I missed. I remember keeping a photo of Luke close to my bed at camp and looking at it during the frequent Bible studies. I cried constantly for the lack of my bird. Not for my mother or father or brother. My bird.

Luke of course was not happy being alone. Fortunately in 1982 I became old enough to start working my first job: a paper route for the Lincoln Journal-Star. Unbeknown to me when I signed the contract, I was the very first girl in my area to take up the job. I also did not know how ingrained the idea of the paperboy was into people’s minds and that just by being a girl I was upsetting many apple carts (so to speak). Instead, I was simply being logical. I needed a job to pay for Luke’s food and other needs and I felt that I was capable of handling the job and the responsibilities involved with it. What other reason could there be for applying for a job?

Working for the Journal-Star gave me money that my family simply did not have to offer as personal spending money, no matter how many dishes I washed or loads of laundry I washed and dried for my mother. That money, though small, was enough to invest in improving Luke’s life, not the least of which was buying another budgerigar to keep him company, a blue breasted bird I named Leia.

Luke and Leia! I was certain that the new bird was a girl. What I didn’t realize was that it takes several months before a young budgie’s cere changes color. In adults, blue or purple means the bird is a boy; grey to brown means the bird is a girl. Babies have neutral color ceres. Neutral is what Leia had. When the cere color turned to purple about six months after bringing Leia home I realized my hopes for baby birds were firmly dashed. Two boys!

As far as Luke was concerned, it didn’t matter. He was very happy to have a