| Larry Powell: Rockwall pet store hopes for speedy return of stolen ill cockatoo 01/12/2001 By / The Dallas Morning News Good morning. Let's move right into the day's activities:
• THE COPPED COCKATOO – On Tuesday afternoon, as one man created a diversion in the Rockwall Petco store, another stepped into the bird room, popped the locks off of an isolation cage, reached in, grabbed Sidney the umbrella cockatoo and walked away from the store.
There's a complication: Sidney is a sick $1,200 cockatoo. The bird has a bacterial infection and must be given antibiotics twice a day, says Terri Gunn, regional Petco marketing coordinator. Because sick birds tend not to eat, she says, Sidney must be hand fed.
If Sidney does not get proper treatment, the outlook is grim, Terri says. To return the bird safely to the Petco store, call Rockwall police at 972-771-7721. The store is at 2609 Market Center Blvd., just off Interstate 30 in Rockwall (Call 972-772-3462.)
Terri says the bird should not be boxed up and left outside an office or store in hopes that it will be discovered. In that instance, the fragile bird, she fears, "will die of exposure." She suggests the bird could be taken to a veterinarian for safety until Petco can retrieve it.
Sidney is a 20-month-old, foot-tall white umbrella cockatoo with yellow markings under each wing and its tail. Store manager Dana Adams says only the bird knows whether it's a male or female. Usually, the experts say, males have black eyes and females have red or brown eyes, but not always. So, humans have to run scientific tests to determine the umbrella cockatoo's gender, he says.
As for the incident, Dana says, "It was definitely not an impulse theft. Whoever did it knew what they were doing – they just didn't know what they were getting."
• YULETIDE LOOSE ENDS – Information continues to trickle in regarding a Dec. 18, 1955, broadcast of a marionette version of The Night Before Christmas (mentioned here a few Mondays ago). The program was sponsored by Bell Telephone. Ennis teacher Melinda Ludwig recalled that it was a "highlight of the season" when she was a kid. An anonymous caller, responding to Melinda's query about a videotape of the show, says he's pretty sure the poem was read by Alexander Scourby, a well-known "voice" who died in 1985. Our search continues, now, for that elusive Bell Telephone special. We've got about 11 months to find it on an old-time TV Web site or in Ma Bell's attic. ... The Love Field Citizens Action Committee sent out gently political greeting cards at Christmas. As you recall the eternal fight over Love Field's racket, read this air traffic control simulation softly: "SANTA SLEIGH 2000, you are cleared for river route departure on 13-right. Use reindeer emission control and jingle bell abatement procedures."
• THE HORRIBLE AFTERMATH – By now we have an idea of how vicious that Christmas ice storm was in Northeast Texas. Parts of the area have gotten a federal disaster declaration.
Speaking of disasters: I got a photo from my longtime, aging childhood friend Dan Sterling of Whitehouse. He has a farm in Bowie County, and it was in the big middle of the icy onslaught.
The photo reveals undeniable tragedy. A giant tree limb, coated with inches of ice, had crashed down without warning onto Dan's outhouse in the woods.
Fortunately, no one was inside. Consequently, we'll never know the answer to this question: If a tree falls on an outhouse in the woods, does it make a sound?
Larry Powell can be reached at 214-977-8487; P.O. Box 655237, Dallas, TX 75265, fax 214-977-8319 or at .
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