Thursday, October 29, 1998

The Noble Pigeon
by Toby Bordelon ([email protected])

While walking back to my apartment last weekend, I started thinking about pigeons -- those cooing, strutting annoyances of the modern-day city. Here in Washington, DC, pigeons are a staple of everyday life. If one were to wake up one morning and not see a pigeon, one would have to give serious consideration to the possibility that the world had come to and end, and that one was not part of that blessed few who were taken up to Paradise the previous night. Along with, naturally, the pigeons.

But why, the careful reader may ask, would pigeons be taken up to Paradise? To answer that question, we must delve into the true nature of the pigeon. I think pigeons sometimes get a bad rap. Many people, my father among them, don't like pigeons. According to him, pigeons are one of the two worthless animals on this earth... the other being cockroaches. (Though the pigeon holds a slightly higher status, based on its potential to make a somewhat satisfying gumbo. Not as good as crawfish, of course.)

I think there's more to the pigeon than this. There must be. Have you ever seen a dead pigeon? I never have. I've posed this question to many of my friends. They have never seen a dead pigeon, either. Presumably a pigeon hit by such hazards as cars, shotgun spreads, or falling towers would pass beyond to the Other Side. But with the vast number of pigeons out in our city streets, the lack of regular sightings of dead ones would seem to indicate that they do not die of natural causes.

Now ponder this second question: Have you ever seen a baby pigeon? Neither have I. And of all the people I've talked to, no one, not a single one, has either.

The conclusion is obvious: Pigeons are immortal. They don't die natural deaths, and they don't reproduce. They have always been, and they will always be. The pigeon, therefore, is Divine. Unchanging. Mysterious. Omnipresent (taken as a group as opposed to any one individual pigeon).

What does all this have to do with the stock market? I have no idea. But I would suggest that the next time you have a stock question, you should consider running it by your local pigeon rather than, oh, say, the daily guest experts on CNBC. After all, if pigeons are immortal, they've got to have picked up some kind of financial savvy in all their time on our fair planet. In light of these considerations, I suspect that a pigeon with a list of stock symbols from a local daily newspaper could do at least as good as your average mutual fund manager.

So next time we see a pigeon on the street, instead of just passing him buy, let's take a moment to admire and honor this Most Noble Creature.

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