Reading response: "Breeding Pigeons on Rooftops, and Crossing Racial Lines"

   This article is about people who breed pigeons on their rooftops and some people race with their pigeons. According to the article, Delroy Sampson had spent 50 years to take care of pigeons, and choreographs them by using a stick from a flag. Few people breed pigeons these days, and according to the article,"there are no more than 300 pigeon fliers left in the city." Another pigeon breeder is Aaron Marshall, who was hooked when he was seven. He was taught to keep new birds in the coop for four weeks and let them out when they are hungry, which teaches the birds to be trained to return. It also said that the pigeon taught Aaron empathy.
   Some pigeon breeders started by being inspired by other pigeon breeders. For example, Ike Jones helped George Coppola, who was an Italian rooftop breeder in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Jones said,"He had electricity and running water, and I only had a box made of scrap wood. On Sunday his wife would cook spaghetti and meatballs and I would eat with them because I was always there." Mr. Sampson started his hobby of pigeon flying when he was a 10-year-old immigrant when he saw the Walt Disney movie "The Pigeon That Worked a Miracle".  Later, he fell under the influence of Joe LaRocca, who is the president of a pigeon racing club.After learning the basics of raising pigeons, Mr. LaRocca and his colleague talked to his mother about pigeon flying.
   Mr. Marshall, now 56 and a maintenance worker, tells the NY Times that breeding pigeons makes you "experience what it is to having a living thing...It shows you how good you are at caring caring for it when it comes back. What good is it for a child to have a violent video game compared to having a living, breathing, loving animal that needs your compassion and care? If I hadn't been on the roof who knows what kind of trouble I would have gotten into."
  Cited Page
   Berger, Joseph. "Breed Pigeons on Rooftops, and Crossing Racial Lines." New York Times on the Web 03 April 2013. N.Y./ Region. 04 April 2013 <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/04/nyregion/breeding-pigeons-on-rooftops-and-blurring-racial-lines.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0>.