I think the birds in this enclosure, which is near the Sun Bears and the Lion-tailed Macaques, are kept there because they are all shy and like to hide. I can usually spot this Magpie Robin, though, because he gives away his location with his lovely song. I just found out that they used to keep them as caged birds in India, for their song and for fighting (which doesn't seem to fit my theory about why they are housed where they are). They continue to be in the bird trade in parts of Southeast Asia.
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So, back to my 16 things. (See
this photo for the explanation.)
5. One of the best things that I learned from my parents' example was the value of hard work. I started working in the family business when I was 12, making $10 a week, which seemed like an enormous amount of money. A year or two later, I worked during the summer, for minimum wage ($1 an hour) , for 9 hours a day, 6 days a week. With all this money, you'd think that I would have learned how to save, but I never really did.
6. My earliest memory is of a trip our family took to Yosemite National Park, when I was three years old. My mother used to say that she was impressed by how observant I was of the things I saw outside the car. She should see me now that I've developed a passion for photography.
7. After a single semester of typing class in high school, I won an award for being the fastest typist in the school. And that was on a manual typewriter. Given today's technology, I can type so fast that I sometimes have to read what's on the screen in order to find out what I'm going to be thinking next.
8. I have an unusual ability to remember some numbers. E.g., the first slaves were imported into the US in the year 1619, our telephone number when I was growing up used to be 3182 (then it was Saratoga - 2 - 3182, then 722-3182, then (619)722-3182), the Kellogg-Briand Pact was signed in 1928 (I didn't even know what that was until I just looked it up. It was an agreement that outlawed war.), the license number on our big, yellow with fake wood sides, Ford LTD station wagon that we had in the 70's was 650MFT, etc. Other numbers I forget - like our current license plate numbers. Hope that doesn't mean that I'm losing my recent-term memory. Let's see. What was I going to say next? Oh, yeah. For our first house, the monthly payment for the first deed was $95.62 and the one for the second was $116.11.