The Kee Bird
By Bill Meyer
Publisher
Years ago most schoolboys knew the joke about the Kee bird, "he flies backward to keep his carburetor cool."
Then, as young men most boys learned some of the words to the age-old song about the mythical bird. Workers on the Alcan Highway recall it as:
"The Eskimos tucked away in their igloos, toss fretful in their sleep,
"While the Huskies asleep in a snowbank, start burrowing way down deep,
"For this cry is so awe-inspiring it freezed the blood I'm told,
"As the Kee Bird flies in the Arctic, crying 'Kee, Kee, Keer _ _ _ but it's cold!"
A B-29 crew in 1947 named their spanking new airplane "The Kee Bird." It ran out of gas above the Arctic Circle and following a historic story the crew eventually was saved. The airplane, "The Kee Bird," continues to rest in the frigid tundra.
All seem to agree, the mythical bird flew backward. He was more interested in where he'd been than where he was going.
That's the position of too many people, they're more interested where they've been than where they're going.
Donna Bernhardt and her capable crew are attempting to operate this newspaper with due respect for where we've been, accurately reporting on where we are, while exerting leadership on the direction Marion County is taking.
No Kee Bird, businessman and former Marion mayor Jack Regnier said it best in last week's newspaper: "If we let our past control our present, we aren't going to have a future."
