One summer in the late 1960s, my father was in Rio at an academic conference one summer, leaving four of us at home: my mother, me (about 7), my younger brother Fred, and our yellow Labrador retriever Duchess, who was due to have puppies any day. Needless to say, Fred and I were very excited about the prospect of puppies — he even expressed the hope that at least one of them would be a kitten.

One evening after we were in bed, Duchess went into labor in the cut-down wooden playpen we were using as a birthing box. After being up all night helping bring eight puppies into the world, my mother must have been exhausted. I didn’t fully appreciate this until I myself was up all night in labor and gave birth to only one offspring (neither a puppy nor a kitten, to be clear).

The puppies were as cute as you can imagine. Duchess was pale yellow in color and her paramour was dark brown, so the puppies ranged from almost white to deep caramel in color. My brother and I had a blast cuddling them and playing with them in the warm grass.

Meanwhile, back in Brazil, my father was taking a sightseeing trip up the Amazon after the conference. As he tells it, they fetched up at a village deep in the jungle, and he encountered a shaman who owned a big green parrot. My father was intrigued by the beautiful bird — about as intrigued as its owner felt when seeing my father light his Winstons with a disposable Bic lighter — so they made a straight swap, parrot for lighter.

As a side note, I’m quite sure there were many opportunities for the villagers to see the lighter in action. My father had worn out his car’s cigarette lighter, so he balanced the steering wheel between his knees as he struck paper matches while zooming down Rt. 128 in his orange Porsche 914 with the windows cracked maybe half an inch. My brother and I inevitably got carsick on trips longer than half an hour.

My father had a small carry-on bag that zippered along the top and was a nice fit for the parrot, so he stuffed the bird inside and got on the plane to fly home. When he landed in Boston, the customs people asked if he had anything to declare. He was hoping to slide through, but in his telling, the parrot emitted a badly timed squawk from the bag, at which point the customs guy rolled his eyes and said “OK, buddy, get in the parrot line.” The bird was confiscated and placed in quarantine.

Some time later, my father got a form letter in the mail saying “We regret to inform you that your [insert species of animal] has died in quarantine.” Not surprising, perhaps, but why did the parrot die exactly when it did? My father always claimed that the shaman’s magical powers were responsible — the parrot must have died right after the cigarette lighter ran out of fluid.