HEITZMAN SIONS
  • 2021 BREEDERS
  • Nov/Dec 2020
  • 2021-2022 STATUS REPORT
  • 2020-2021 UPDATE
  • UPDATE NO SWEAT SION PHOTOS
  • SIONS
  • Welcome
  • 2019 Breeders
    • 2019 Breeders
    • New Page
  • 2018 Breeders
  • 2017 Breeding Program
    • No Sweat
    • 2017 Cocks
    • 2017 Hens
    • 2017 Stock Birds
  • Racing Pigeons
  • 2017 Key Breeding Pairs
  • The Heitzman Story
  • About
  • Contact
  • Pigeon Gallery
  • 2016 Pigeon Stories
  • Pigeon Stories
  • Adventures
  • Archaeology
  • Edward W. Hawkins
  • Writing & Reviews
  • Chesteen
  • New Page
  • New Page
  • 2020-2021 UPDATE
  • UPDATE NO SWEAT SION PHOTOS
  • New Page

As Innocent As a Dove

2/19/2015

 
A fictional story 
by
No Sweat

           We were a million miles from home and it was raining purple.
           "Dad!" screamed my baby. A bolt of lightning had just smacked a palm sending her into near shock.  Grabbing her, we ended our nightly stroll through the park and fled toward our condo.  Now, the Gulf Stream seemed no longer my quiet old friend. Just south was the Palm Beach inlet and fifty miles east lay hundreds of small islands, the Bahamas. Some said they were South Americas main dumping grounds for illicit drugs.
           Out of the darkness, as we were running and after another bolt had sent us into high gear, something hit me on the head;
           What was it?
            A pigeon had collapsed from the dark heavens; it was stunned and I took it with us. 
            As my wife and daughter were drying off in our room I began a thorough inspection of the pigeon. It was a racing homer; sleek, black velvet and owning the most brilliant, almost florescent orange eyes that I had ever seen; a plastic tube extending along its back was attached to it by way of a harness. The racer had one gold band on its right leg that read:  "LULU."
           She's carrying medicine, I thought.
            I had read about doctors and hospitals using homing pigeons to transport emergency medicine. The pigeons could fly and cut across dense cities much quicker than any ambulance.
            I'll bet she was flying to some place in Miami. She must have gotten caught in that storm.
           "Daddy, what are you going to do with her?"
           "Well, I can't do much. She's like a lost soul. I don't know where she came from or where she was going. I believe she's carrying medicine that could be important to someone. Tonight, I'll give her a drink and let her rest. Come morning, I'll let her go. Hopefully, the medicine can still be used."
            My daughter, Nancy, smiled, bent over and wrapped her arms around my neck. Giving me a kiss she said, "Good night, daddy. I love you."
            Such innocence from big blue eyes and red hair.
            A daughter can do anything to a father's heart.
           "Night, doll," I responded. "Don't forget to say your prayers, especially for me." 
           The next morning at 6:13 AM, just as a pink sun snuck above the ocean, I released Lulu. Before the release I had attached a note to her leg with the help of a rubber band.     
           The pigeon flew but a hundred or so yards north, disappearing on the roof of a magnificent condo.
            That's not much of a homing pigeon, I thought.
             I was then glad that I had penned the rather boastful note to her leg.
            On the note I had left my Florida phone number and Kentucky address.
            That evening  I was surprised to receive a certain phone call:
            "Is this THE great pigeon author and pigeon whisperer, 'NO SWEAT?'   The man that found my racer, Lulu,  and now brags, that in fact, he can breed the best racers in the world."
           "Well," I answered rather sheepishly, "I suppose all that could easily be true. I am rather gifted. Yes, you have the humble master, No Sweat."
            A hearty laugh responded back over the phone; one of those that continued for some time. Finally, the voice spoke again, "No Sweat, if you are as you proclaim, then you may be of use to me. Tonight, at exactly ten o'clock, I would like to meet with you at THE DAVENPORT. Do you know where it is at?"
           "Of course I do," I answered. Everyone on Singer Island knew where THE DAVENPORT was located. It only happened to take up some quarter mile of the finest real estate in the world; the most magnificent condo in all of Florida. 
           Then I remembered, that's where Lulu had disappeared. 
           "Good, good," spoke the voice with a lot of Kentucky strangely wrapped up in it. "Now remember this, as it is vitally important, when you meet my door man, wink with your left eye and say, 'ONE THOUSAND.' Have you got that?"
           "Yes," I responded. "ONE THOUSAND."
           "Correct. And when you come to my elevator operator you are to repeat this. And when you step out of the elevator you will meet my man in the hallway. Again, you are to wink and say, 'ONE THOUSAND.'  He will then bring you to me. Is all this perfectly clear?"
           "Yes," I said. "Wink. Left eye. ONE THOUSAND. ONE THOUSAND. ONE THOUSAND. Ten o'clock. The Davenport."
           "Correct. I'll see you soon."
           The phone clicked and I quit talking.
           Such a strange call.
           TI had lied big time. Nothing was perfectly clear. I didn't know why but for some mysterious reason I had agreed to meet a total stranger. About what, I wasn't sure. But I sensed that it had to do with pigeons. 
           Two hours later, I was being escorted down a plush, cool hallway. Stopping at an ornate door the gold pigeon head knocker was lightly tapped one time.
           The door opened and there before me stood a small man, neatly attired with apparel reflective of the jazz era when Billie Holiday sang.
           I at once recognized him.
           I had been a writer for the pigeon journals all over the world and this man's face was as legendary as any on Mt. Rushmore's.In his day he had been the undisputed greatest racing pigeon flier ever in the history of the sport, having dominated it for over forty years.
           For a moment I was stunned.
           Not because I was meeting the true master but because the pigeon world had been saddened some ten years ago to learn of this man's death; he had drowned at sea in a fishing accident and his body had never been found.
           His hand quivered as he extended it to me.  "No Sweat," he said, smiling, "do you know why I use the words, ONE THOUSAND?"
           "No," I responded, taking his hand and stepping into his domain. 
           His smile lowered. "I keep one thousand racers at one thousand feet high," he announced.
           It dawned on me that I was in some great penthouse on the 100th floor.
           "Anyone who betrays my trust," informed the staunch figure, holding onto my hand and staring into me with his ice-blue eyes, "finds ot what it is to fall one thousand feet."                                                                         
            I began to follow the man as he took me to his inner glass living quarters. Surrounding his glass walls was another large dome of special glass; the most palatal pigeon paradise ever dreamed. The entire set up was immaculately clean with two loft men clad in white busily attending to their duties. About every fifty feet there was a fountain and along the walls grew morning glories, bird of paradise and other plants of colorful nature.
           Above me, the stars were brilliant. The Milky Way was alive. And the moon's glow over the Gulf Stream, well, owned my soul.
           Surely, there had been a time millions of years ago when I lived in the sea.
           Stepping over to a huge screen he pressed a button.  "That's the islands," he explained, pointing at the top, and here we are," he continued, showing me a steady light at the bottom. "This radar program is better than what the military has. I always know the weather and where any planes might be. Last evening was a freak storm. That's the only reason you intercepted Lulu. Do you see that light blinking there?"
           "Yes," I responded in awe; the blinking light was moving downward on the screen. 
           "Well," he noted, looking at his watch on his wrist, "that's my first team. They will be here in exactly thirteen minutes and forty seven seconds."
           At exactly ten thirty, he opened a window, lowered a board and switched on a purple outside light. Seconds later, I remained quiet, observing 100 black velvet hens, all owning bright orange eyes enter through the window and go to their respective nests. Each hen was caught as each of them was carrying a plastic tube filled with white powder. 
            Something inside of me said that white stuff wasn't pigeon bloom.
            "One hundred times two ounces is twelve and one half pounds per team," stated THE MASTER as he smiled. An hour later, another team returned. And on the hour each hour for three more hours another team returned. In all, five hundred black velvet hens had brought him sixty two and one half pounds. It had all gone off with precision clockwork.
            Before I was permitted to leave I had to take a vow, never to brag again about my abilities with racing pigeons or what I had seen.  It wasn't a hard matter. A thousand feet is a long way to fall.
            After that night, I decided to get rid of all my racing pigeons when I got back to Kentucky and raise nothing but the fattest fan tails on earth.
            Get back to innocence and a big slice of humble pie.

2011 Racing Pigeon Notes

2/19/2015

 
by
E. Lowell "Robbie" / "No Sweat" Robbins
                              
     My loft partner, John Hayes, and I recently got back our fifth racer from a distance of nearly 600 miles.  This turned out to be a disastrous toss for the 
118 pigeons that I released; 83 of them were young birds and nine were solid whites. The rest were yearlings with one two year old in the group. That two year old came home this week. She is a blue bar splash hen, Sion. I did not train her any last year. But the year before she came back on the second day as a young bird from 200 miles with ten of her twelve tail feathers ripped out of her along with talon wounds along her back; the results of a hawk attack, most likely a Cooper's hawk. Because of her miraculous flight back from Chattanooga I named her, after that city. And it was Chattanooga that recently came home from the near 600 miles in 29 days, saturated in oil. To see and handle her would have you doubting that she could fly 100 yards, let alone the distance she achieved. John and I have been washing her daily with Dawn's Dish-washing detergent but it has been having little effect on her caked in Vaseline-like grime. Dawn's dish-washing detergent may have helped the birds with oil on them during the oil spill along the Gulf but it is not proving to be much for us. I am now also using some alcohol napkins soaked in alcohol which is helping a little, but like the Dawn's, not much.  We are just hoping to do this enough times so that eventually the hen will come back to being close to her old self. She is undergoing great care and after this last ordeal will permanently be stocked. She has proved beyond all measure that she is quite special. I have the mindset to send a photo of her into the top pigeon magazine and have that picture of her in all her desultory-look be published on the front cover.  To me, she could not look more beautiful as I feel that below that mired appearance is the heart of a champion. And that she truly is what our sport is all about.
     My intent with training young birds, etc. so hard the past several 
years has been to seek out exceptional racers, particularly at long distances. It is these distances of 600 miles and over that genuinely take over in showing just what kind of homing ability and instinct a pigeon owns.  And it is this homing instinct that is the one thing that is more important for a great racer to own over all other qualities.  Paul Sion created a reputation breeding down from exceptional long distance pigeons and so did my old friend, Charles Heitzman. Once you find truly great long distance pigeons you are on your way to success.  Building physical qualities in racing pigeons is quite simple, a matter of genetics and one's understanding of what is recessive and dominant. And a mind's eye to understand aero dynamics.
     One of the interesting notes I have observed this year, that something which I have greatly concerned myself about, is that homing instinct.  In this recent experiment with 118 pigeons, 83 of which were young birds, only five have returned.  Those five have been four yearlings and one two year old, "Chattanooga."  NONE of the young birds have thus far returned. And that may well have been expected by the sport as the sport just naturally assumes that the older birds are more mature, stronger and better trained.
     But that was actually NOT the case with this toss.
    In truth, I had far more young birds than old birds in this toss;  83 of 118.   And this particular group of young birds were actually better conditioned; better physically, better almost everything.  As far as strength was concerned and probable ability, these young birds should have easily dominated the old yearlings that I sent. And yet, they did not. Thus far, not even close.
      And what has this experiment said to me.
    It hints that in some way the homing instinct itself, over time, becomes stronger in a pigeon living at a place. 
     This area of study is one that I have not seen employed by any scientist studying the homing instinct in pigeons, other birds or any animals.
     What causes this homing instinct to grow stronger as the bird matures is an area I now find interesting.
     Blessings. 

Love Denied: A true story for Gene Yoes

2/19/2015

 
by No Sweat

Above the fringed palm fronds through their ever so slightly swaying serrations, there peering from in between twin belvedere towers with graceful arches patterned after the Villa Medici in Rome, perched as if some demure Notre Dame gargoyle, the distinct silhouette of a pigeon held steadfast looking from the heart of Palm Beach's legendary resort, The Breakers: Not just a place but a mood and a way of being. That pigeon peered into a blue sky painted perfect above the bluer still Gulf Stream. Blue the bird was. Blue in nature, I supposed, and near blue in color. Yes, indubitably a blue bar.

It was near noon as I gave a nod of approval to my cautious waiter standing so attentively for some sign of gesture. He was but a small cog in the commitment of the culinary staff to elevate guests' expectations relishing in the epicurean delights composed of the freshest ingredients delivered by impeccable service; assuredly, a certain rich and relaxed Mediterranean sophistication serving delectable dishes reminiscent of the French Riviera. My avocado fries were just about to be anointed in various chef-specialty sauces when I noticed that blue bar drop from his position, gracefully gliding down to land ever so near our glassed table and chairs onto the tan colored granite floor.

I sat there partially under a yellow umbrella surrounded by my red headed wife and daughter, son-in-law and two grandsons looking away from our table with its center piece of a silvery bucket of red roses and folded gold colored cloth napkins toward the immense Imari vases where the blue bar was maneuvering about, pecking here and there, searching for a crumb, inspecting anything as small as a grain of sand.

Then it began, the all but trivial flicking of jeweled fingers. Soon, other fingers at the same table. They were such annoyed fingers having to abandon their champagne. Shoo!  You feathered disease bundle, those fingers decreed. Suddenly, another table followed suit. Fingers flicking more rapidly, evolving into slight airy backhands. You dastard! How dare you! Breathing our air!  Finally, at a third table, there erupted small claps in attempts to evoke the disappearance of that impudent beggar.

How queer my life had been with pigeons. Catching them off the bridge that was my front yard. Slinking up rails not long after I had learned to walk,  Heitzman, all but my father. Isselhardt, nearly a brother I had been blessed with the best in both racing and showing racing homers. I felt sorry for those pigeon-less people. You see, life's small affording of sugar which can be in the form of a pigeon is precious. Those people were but pastel dummies in their Ralph Polo shirts and straw hats and white Breakers' bathrobes issued at an additional $300 per guest of the resort.

What a beauty the blue bar was. Sparkling far more than the gold and silver adorning those dummies. His neck, vibrant in greens and blues almost as alluring as the eyes of my wife and daughter. You could see he was descended down from a racer. How wonderful, I considered, being one of Darwin's old champions, that from the wild rock dove evolved some racing homer and how that racing homer had dissolved back into the wild. He was a determined creature and though somewhat trusting he acknowledged death. I suppose though what I admired most about him was his denial of love. He handled it perfectly. Just like a writer should.

Then the blue bar flew off. My "Blue Bar of Zanzibar" landing back at his original position, the sun reflecting upon his two black bars. It entered my mind that nearly every racing homer fancier must own a place in their heart for such a bird. That for many fanciers it was that common pigeon that first intrigued their imagination and somehow got them started.  In this, we owed that pigeon our respect. Less-wise, we spit on our memories.

The next day before sunrise I found myself alone by the sea. You realize how close you are between dream and reality when you observe darkness dissolve into day over the Gulf Stream. The ocean and sky were so very still. Slowly, the black of night faded to grey and that grey faded into blues and lavender and cream. At some point there became a faint line in the strange distance where the sea and sky divided; the pink-orange and yellow light appearing and the ocean from where you stand reflecting such a colored path back to the sun. I'll never know why but I thought of that blue bar.


Heitzman Sions

2/10/2015

 
Picture
 

Picture
Forward>>

    Pigeon Stories

    by No Sweat 
    (c) copyright protected

    Picture

    Categories

    All
    2011 Racing Pigeon Notes
    As Innocent As A Dove
    As Time Goes By
    Bird Brains And Hemp Seed
    Charles Heitzman
    Fly Me To The Moon...
    Heaven Roosted There
    Heitzman Sions
    LOST (Commies)
    Love Denied: A True Story For Gene Yoes
    Once There Was A Way
    Peg Leg
    Pigeon Stories
    Return To Nothing
    Sion History
    Sions
    The Father Of Freud
    When She

    Archives

    October 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly