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Scenic Adair County: Keepers of the Clock 2007-09-01 - Downtown Columbia, KY - Photo By Betty Sue Jasper. KEEPERS of the CLOCK is what Betty Sue Jasper captioned this photo. The pigeons are back. They may have been for years and nobody noticed. It's been half a century since the top issue in Adair County was how to chase them away. In the 1950s and before, pigeons were so plentiful that one could almost trip over them on the sidewalks where errant Rialto or Columbian popcorn kernels lay. The pigeons had another major roost, the Mary Lucy Lowe barn behind what is now the Richard and Mary Beth Phelps House on what was then and is now Lowe's Lane. It's not easy to remember what year they were finally driven away. They are beautiful, entertaining creatures. And, at the same time, they do create a clocktower mess and odor which can overwhelm an intrepid clocktower climber. Anyone who's ever scaled that summit for a better view of a parade can tell you how long its effect would last, how many years they had to answer to the sobriquet, Bird S---. Perhaps the pigeons' near extinction ensued after the Great Pigeon War of 1957-1958, when some of the sportsmen - boys who owned the businesses on the Square - would form anti-aircraft units in almost military formations in front of what is now the Adair Annex and Karen Burton's and Jeff Hoover's offices and blast the birds out of the sky. Whether that worked or not, it was great theatre, especially for small boys and geezer residents of the Hotel Miller. Whether it was ecologically ethical or not, it was glorious to watch a pigeon plummet and splatter, another plummet and splatter. and another. It may have been wrong to stand by and watch and marvel at the carnage. To us, back then, it was pretty. But that's the way we were raised. - ED WAGGENER Permalink | Comments?

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