University of Pittsburgh - Owl Yearbook (Pittsburgh, PA)

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I? PITT OWL Pitt Owl did not become his great self by being born that way. He was, in fact, just a common owl until he got the last bit of owl egg-shell picked off himself. Then he began to add nice, though small, improvements to his personality. just what he did of this sort we do not know, for he is never very confidential. But we do know that on his first flight from the Deep Woods he came to a high niche on the Cathedral where he has lived ever since. Very likely it does not matter that his bringing up is rather obscure. Erom these early days Pitt Owl has shown that he is not a common owl. For one thing, he never suggests that you look up to him. Yet something about his personality rather requires that you do look up to him-living as he does at so high a niche. This shows his whimsical notion that it is good always to look up. Pitt Owl seems to be mostly feathers, the kind you would like to touch if you could reach so high and were sure that he would not bite. He never has a bedraggled look. He never has a hungry look, either, and there is not a hint about his feath- ers or bill that he has ever eaten one of the pigeons that some- times fly near his bailiwick. ln these ways he shows that he is a likable bird. The plainest thing about Pitt Owl is that he has got wisdom. He never makes a noise that is just a nuisance. He does make noise, but it is always of a tuneful heart-stirring sort-the kind you would make if you knew how. Mostly, though, he listens, his ear-tufts, longer and fluffier than ear-tufts of common owls, show that. ln the fleche on the Heinz Chapel he listens to the organ and to the choir and to sermonsg and in his niche he listens in on science talks. lf you ask him what he likes to listen to, he just turns the other way. He will not answer you by a nod toward the Chapel or toward the Cathedral. Yet you can not possibly miss the main idea in his head which is, of course, that it took a great deal of different kinds of listening to become Pitt Owl. But if you ask even a sillier guestion, he would not hoot you. He would probably hoot, not at you but in a nice advisory way, sounding somewhat like You-oo-oo-can-be-you-oo-oo. That hoot is said to be an intimation about everyone at Pitt. Even on short acquaintance his wisdom is awfully plain. Pitt Owl likes to be seen-not that he uses claw or bill polish. But he does like to be seen, that is, to have friends who are not dumb or too slow to get an idea. The tilt of his head one way or another shows that. He never rolls his eyes, and in telling one idea or another seldom lifts a wing. But when an extra good idea comes along, such as some mention about pigeons, he likes to dance a step or two, wings up. lf you take down what he says in any one of his best minutes, it makes an English theme that would get marked A plus. So it is plain why it is good to have Pitt Owl around and why he is looked up to as he sits in his high niche, especially at about 8:00 AM., buff in the sunshine, looking East. lohn G. Bowman 9

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JOHN G. BOWMAN RETIRING CHANCELLOR E31

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