That Time I Got Hit by a Rotten Pigeon Egg  

Oct  13, 2025

Have you ever been hit by a rotten pigeon egg? I have! Let me tell you about it...

Jim Wilson came west from Ontario sometime in the 1960s and settled in the area southeast of Lacombe. A carpenter by trade, he found plenty of work in the district, mostly building barns and outbuildings for the local farmers. I worked for him for a few weeks in the winter of 1976, helping to build a hog barn. He was older, probably in his late fifties or early sixties by then. He looked like the carpenter out of central casting: cap jauntily placed on his head, a pencil behind his ear, and a cigarette perpetually dangling from his mouth. He seemed to get things done with remarkable efficiency, whether it involved physical motion or giving instructions. He communicated effectively with terse, barked orders—more grunts than actual words. I can still hear him exhorting us labourers as we installed metal sheeting on a roof: “Up a little, down a little... nail ‘er!”

Coffee breaks were always interesting as he would regale us with stories of growing up in Ontario. And he seemed to have a witticism for every occasion. Upon finding out that I was majoring in history, he calmly informed me that “There’s no future in history!” And I’m pretty sure that it was from Jim that I first heard the proverb “Don’t let school interfere with your education!” When it came time for payday, he wouldn’t bother searching for a pen; that carpenter’s pencil worked just fine for writing cheques. I was always amazed that the banks didn’t raise a fuss.

In the summer of 1978, I once again found employment with Jim. By then, he had moved on from construction to doing salvage work. The two grain elevators at Prentiss, just two miles south of where I now live, had been decommissioned, and Jim bought them both. The plan was to salvage and then sell the reclaimed lumber. There was a remarkable amount of wood in the old traditional grain elevators built on the prairies in the early 1900s. Not only the quantity, but the quality of the wood, being constructed of old-growth fir, was exceptional. The only problem was the amount of labour required to safely tear down the towering ninety-foot structures.

Of course, Jim had a solution for that. Instead of dismantling the structure from the top down, piece by piece, Jim, with his knack for efficiency, came up with an alternate plan. To hasten the destruction, a heavy cable was securely attached to the building, and then a huge Caterpillar tractor would literally pull the elevator over on its side.

I came on the scene just prior to the second elevator being toppled. We started by removing anything of value from the structure. One particular day (which I will never forget), Jim and another worker, Henry, were up in the cupola, the high room at the top of the elevator. I don’t know if they found anything of value worth salvaging, but they did find a rotten pigeon egg. Jim looked out of the window and there he spied me, ninety feet below. Timing his toss perfectly, he waited until I bent over to pick up a board. Splatt! Stunned, I looked up to see where it came from, only to see two grinning faces peering out the cupola window. The egg hit me right in the small of the back. And, of course, to make things worse, when I bent over, the waist of my pants opened just enough that the smashed rotten egg ran down my backside. I’ll spare the details of the aftermath, both my verbal response and the sticky mess down under! To be fair, perhaps Jim and Henry didn’t know that it was a rotten egg which of course increased their joy upon the discovery.

A few days later, in a cloud of dust, the elevator was successfully toppled, much to the agitation of the local pigeon community. Seeing that monster fall was an amazing sight, one that I will never forget. Just like that time I got hit by a rotten pigeon egg!