2/23/2021
Bucko’s secret to 100 years? Chocolate – any kind
Eleanor Bucko, a lifelong Pawtucket resident who turned 100 years old last Friday, Feb. 19, used to ride a horse from Cottage Street to Walcott Street back in the 1940s when there weren’t as many cars on the road.
PAWTUCKET – In 1942, 21-year-old Eleanor Bucko would ride a horse from Cottage Street to Walcott Street in Pawtucket, during a time when there weren’t many cars on the road. The animal belonged to her boss, who let her take it out for exercise, the lifelong Pawtucket resident said.
“You would never dare try to do (that) today,” she told The Breeze last Friday, Feb. 19, the day of her 100th birthday. “But everything was much slower.”
And cages and food and wicker nests and first aid spray.
JJ Birds & Supplies, a one-stop-shop bird business, has been hawking finches, parakeets, canaries and the occasional cockatiel and cockatoo since 2019.
But it wasn’t until last month that the owners moved operations to a building that’s set back from Second Street where it is less conspicuous to passersby.
The business is owned by cousins Joe Correia and John Ferreira. The two grew up in a four-family Robeson Street house where Correia’s father kept American Singer Canaries in a large cage in the building’s basement.
“We’ve grown up with birds,” said Ferreira, who works as a construction site supervisor for a local company and for years has coached girls’ varsity softball at Durfee High School.