I hate birds. Not some birds. All of them. I can look at them, from a distance, and think they are beautiful. I can see a hawk or even an eagle flying in my neighborhood and understand their majesty—as something to be admired as they soar across the sky. But I can still hate them. And I know the exact moment my hatred had been born.

The house I lived in for most of my childhood was a small, 2-story brick house about five miles from downtown Pittsburgh. Like all city neighborhoods, houses and businesses not wildlife dominated what I saw each day. On a cold, snowy morning in the winter of 1979 or ’80, still dressed in my warm, flannel nightgown, I heard a loud squawking clearly coming from INSIDE my home. A bird, most likely a robin, had somehow come down the chimney and gotten stuck on the closed flue.

Before I proceed to the events which occurred, it is important to give some background about my father. Though my dad loved sports, he was not necessarily an athlete. Although he was incredibly smart, he often lacked common sense. Though he loved nature, it was something he admired and revered, not something he necessarily understood or commanded. And absolutely no one who knew my father would have described him as outdoorsy.

On that morning, in my ninth year of life, bird now trapped in the chimney of our house, my father made decisions on how best to help our visitor to leave. He opened the flue inside our fireplace and lit a fire. He hoped the smoke would force the bird up and out of the chimney. Here’s where having more than just admiration of birds would have most decidedly helped the situation. Birds don’t fly straight up or down; they ascend by going out and up—the confined space of the chimney did not allow our bird-visitor to leave the way it arrived. Now not only was it trapped, but it also had the flames and smoke of my father’s fire to contend with. Suddenly, the bird, who we had not yet seen, plunged out of the chimney into the fire and then clung onto the metal fireplace grate.

It may have been at this point when my father began to realize his error. He instructed nine-year-old me to go to the front door and hold it open, while he would attempt to free the bird. I have long wondered how the bird knew to leave by the opened front door. It could have flown left and into the kitchen. It could have flown upstairs. It could have decided to hang out anywhere inside our home. I have long believed we got incredibly lucky that day.

Since my shoes were all upstairs, I slid my feet into my dad’s size 12 snow boots and moved to the front door, opening the screen door. My dad yelled, “Here it comes!” and a moment later, the bird having been freed from the flames and smoke of the fireplace, flapped and squawked just above my head as if were punishing me for both its and my father’s stupidity. I bolted inside the house, size 12 boots now wet from the snow on the ground and hit the linoleum floor. I flew forward, arms and legs moving in all directions, landing flat, skidding across the hard floor. My dad stood above me, laughing at the sight.

And since I could never have hated my dad, I have hated birds ever since.