Memories of birds I've known

In my last post, I talked about the hunting craze in Pennsylvania, and it reminded me of my childhood hunting trips with my father -- and an incident that ended those hunting trips.

When I was little, my father used to go hunting a lot for whitewings--a particular kind of dove common in South Texas during certain parts of the year. (In my memory, it looks a lot like a mourning dove, but I think it was some related species.) Because my dad worked A LOT, my sister Mary and I used to go on these dove-hunting trips with him so that we could spend time with him and so we could go out to "the country" and drink sodas and eat chips and sandwiches. I thought it was the height of "roughing it," you know?

Our job on these hunting trips was to collect the just-shot birds and pull the feathers off them. My dad would do the yanking off of the head, gutting, etc. because Mary and I were grossed out by that. We really enjoyed these trips and "peeling" (defeathering, don't know who came up with that term) the birds, playing with the feathers and stuff.

One time, we went hunting behind our grandpa's house, just out in the vast sorghum fields outside Donna, Texas. My dad shot a bird, and when we went out to gather its little corpse, we found it wasn't yet dead. This had never happened to us before; the birds before had always been dutiful in their deadness and thus I usually didn't feel anything about picking them up, peeling them, and so forth. This guy was fluttering his wings, making little sputtering sounds, and pretty much freaking the crap out of Mary and me.

We then went into EMT mode, laying him on his back, pumping his little bird chest with a fingertip, blowing on his face, trying to find and perhaps extract the fatal shot. In retrospect, we probably hastened the bird's passing, which is a good thing. Despite our efforts, of course, the life slowly ebbed from his body and he stopped moving, but not before significant crying and hullaballoo ensued.

I never went dove-hunting after that.

When I was younger, I really didn't think too much about wild animals and the pain we humans inflicted on them. There are pictures in the family photo albums of my siblings and I next to dead deer and dead fish, all of us just smiling for the camera and happy to be near my dad when he was in such a good mood. He wasn't at work, and he'd just engaged in a sport he enjoyed. We'd watch him gut deer or fish or doves, and other than thinking "gross!" at all the blood, I just don't remember feeling anything for the lives of the animals. I still went fishing a lot, and even as an adult, I used to love being out there on a lake or near the ocean, feeling the little tugging of another life at the end of that line. (I was strictly catch-and-release; I didn't want to have to clean the fish.)

I don't really remember when my feelings changed, except that they did. My love for farm animals, birds, wild beasts of any sort just kind-of grew as I aged, to the point where I stopped eating meat of any sort over five years ago. Sure, I miss the taste of a good steak or a nice piece of rosemary chicken with lemon juice on it, but the idea of sitting down at a table and cutting into that--well, I just don't even want to think about it.

Even before I began birding, I would think about the lives of the birds I saw flying around, scavenging for food in city parking lots, begging for food on my college campus, wondering what they did when they weren't looking for food. I remember that bluejay baby I found in my driveway in Austin, dying after being pecked and ejected from his nest by his mother or father bird; wondering why the adult would do that. I remember watching a little chipping sparrow feeding its young, seeing the gapes of the babies and hearing their cheeping as the parent came near the nest. I began to bird in part out of a desire to learn just what birds did all day, in addition to just watching their beautiful feathered forms.

I'm struggling now to end this post, to back-out to some sort of generalization or clever turn of phrase that will serve as a tidy closure. But my mind is still too full of memories: still melancholy about that dove, still wondering what made that bluejay kill its young, still wondering what happened to that robin's eggs and made her abandon her carefully built nest. Still wondering what birds do all day, and watching them to try to find out.

Green Monkey Music Project -- for a better America

Remember when you were in high school and college, and you and your friends (or your boyfriend/girlfriend) would make mixtapes for each other, with songs that were special or meant something "inside" between the two of you, etc.? Oh, the mixtapes I made back in the '80s! All Go-Go's and Altered Images and B-52's and Bow-Wow-Wow and other crazy early-MTV-era bands, Fleetwood Mac, all kinds of crazy stuff--that, in fact, is how I got really good at playing guitar, because my first girlfriend Kris and I would send each other tapes and tablature of cool songs we liked; that's how I learned to play everything from Rush to the Pretenders. Those were the days!

Well, I, Splotchy (I'm always talking about Splotchy, aren't I?) has been putting together online mixtapes under the heading of the Green Monkey Music Project, and I participated in a recent mix called "What's In a Word" featuring one-word-titled songs. A few other people and I submitted our lists, and Splotchy put up the links to download all the songs for free! (with just a quick little registration--painless). My songs are special to me, but there are some REALLY great songs in all his mixes. Check it out! By the way, Beth's songs ROCK; definitely check them out if you don't already have them in your rotation.

Besides, now I get to put this cool badge on the bloggy:

Cordial Shelf

So, I am a working man at last (hurray!). Yes, that's right, I have gotten myself some gainful paid employment. In a SHOP.

What I do, right, is I sell alcohol and cigarettes and chocolate. Mostly to the working class. I like this, because in my previous role as a useless layabout middle-class callow youth, the working classes of this country were a dark force to be feared. With their slovenly (but, in opposition to the opinions of the presctiptivist linguist wanker John Honey, NOT INCORRECT, MERELY NON-STANDARD) use of language, their shabby dress, their beady little eyes and their angry 'We work for our crust and read The Sun' outlook on the world, they were a scary mass with which I had no rapport, rather like terrorists, crackheads, and orks. But now, we have something in common. No - scratch that - we have a reason for communication. They want the fags and booze (it numbs the pain); I am the only one who can give them the fags and booze. In a way, it is like they are the Balrog, and I am Gandalf, and Frodo is a 20 pack of Benson and Hedges Silver. They come in, slavering at the till, and I'm like "YOU SHALL NOT PASS... until you give me £5.35" and then they do and so I give them their death-sticks and everyone is happy.

I guess what I'm saying is that, being a dealer of mind-numbing toxins really gets you respect from the working classes. They basically do whatever you say. GIVE ME SOME MONEY I cry, then they give me money. And they are ultra polite to me, saying 'Please' and 'Thank you', with their shiny eyes fixed on the bottle of Gin clutched in my hand and the box of Malboroughs clenched in my fist. Let me expemplify. Yesterday, a man dressed in painters overalls said "Cheers fella". I am going to repeat that. A MAN DRESSED IN PAINTERS OVERALLS SAID "CHEERS FELLA". If that doesn't cement my place in society, I don't know what will. And, I mean, it isn't just men in painter's overalls. Having the key to the drinks cabinet brings you into contact with all sorts of exciting people from every walk of life, to weird looking 14 year olds with fake IDs - whom I cast away from the door with my fiery rod of justice - to nervous alcoholics - such as the woman who sprinted in, asked for a litre bottle of vodka, paid in cash then ran off without taking her change - to happy drunks - such as the chap who comes in every day to buy a Heinekin and a Tenants and who gave his son's mobile number to Rose the other night.
Oh yeah, my lover Rose also works at the shop. She is going through a bit of a straight phase and is going out with the manager, whose name is Jerry. YES JERRY. HIS NAME IS JERRY AND MY NAME IS TOM.

Fucking classic, you can't write that shit.

The fact that Rose and Jerry (HAHAHAHAHA) are kind of seeing each other had nothing to do with my getting the job, by the way.

Anyway, I think that J-Dogg can sense the huge and inescapable sexual chemistry between me and Rose, because yesterday was the first day that we got to work a shift together (from 4-10); this was only because Jerry couldn't get the train in. PERHAPS HE WAS EATING A PARTICULARLY BIG PIECE OF CHEESE AND THEN HE GOT STUCK IN HIS MOUSE HOLE! So it was me and Rose. And Rose's friend Yuko who is japanese and was there for no discernable reason. Anyway, when we arrived I said to Rose 'Now, just because we are friends it doesn't mean that we can't do a thorough, professional job with absolutely no messing around, no silliness and no playing the goat; I respect you as a colleague and co-worker and I think that we can keep the working environment both friendly, but also respectful and sensible'. I did say that. I think some of the message was lost because I delivered it while attempting to joust her head with a broom while propelling myself around the stockroom on the swivelly chair. But anyway, we got on with it; counted the float money and started serving customers.

My biggest problem with this job is counting the float. The thing is, when you first log in you get given £100 in - basically - loose change - and you have to count every penny to make sure that it is all there. Now, we all know that maths is not my strong point. On reflection, I would not describe myself as a modern-day Steven Hawkings. Counting 2-3, or in twos, or every five; it does not work for me. I lose count. Therefore, I have to count every single coin INDIVIDUALLY and then double-check it to make sure that I have the right amount. Then, at the end of the day, you see how much money is in the till, remove the exess, then count the leftover to see if you have 100. If you do - HURRAY YOU WIN. If not it causes a headache. I know that this system seems to be old and archaic and the answer is that the machines that we use to take the money were made in the 70s. They still think that the shop is called Victoria Wine. I hadn't even HEARD of Victoria Wine which means that the chain must have changed their name before I got interested in alcohol. And then the machines pre-dated that. They are fucking old, and my till is somehow WELDED to the desk which means that nobody can move it. The drawer also kept getting jammed shut which meant that I had to rescan things twice. REMEMBER THAT INFORMATION, AS IT IS USEFUL.

Anyway, the day I was working with Rose, there weren't many customers. Except for one old guy who showed up at the door and loudly read out what I assumed was the writing on a poster on the door. Like, he listed wine prices and special offers then screamed WE'RE GOING TO HAVE A SPECIAL TIME TONIGHT, YOU AND I EH to Rose, then scampered off. When I looked at the door, there was nothing posted up there. Other than that, no customers. So we decided to restock the shelves. We haven't had a delivery for two weeks so there was no stock to put on the shelves. There was literally nothing to do and - as the old saying goes - the devil makes work for idle thumbs.

Ten minutes later, I was lying on the floor, with Rose perched on my knees and a fluffy purple fish (called Phillip, store mascot) on her head. She was talking to Jerry - CLASSIC - on the phone. He told me to vacuum the carpet. There isn't a carpet in the store, except for the two squares of gummy green felt behind the till. So I vacuumed that. Ten minutes later, I stapled a bow to Phillip, tied him to a broom, and made him swim back and forth in front of the CCTV camera mounted to the ceiling. Meanwhile, Rose was watching me on the video monitor, drawing a green afro on the screen where my head was. We were both wearing hats that I had made out of the tissue used for wrapping the wine bottles. Yuko was sitting on a chair, staring blankly at the wall. After making Phillip swim for a bit on tape, I had a thought.

"Rose?"
"Yes?"
"Does anyone ever watch the CCTV camera tape back?"
"Nah. Well, only if the till is down, money's missing from the safe, or a load of stock has been lost."
"Oh, ok."
I returned to making the fish swim.

Three hours after that:
"My till is down twelve quid."
"And there's forty quid missing from the safe."
"Oh."

This was worrying. Every single penny in the shop needs to be accounted for, and here we were missing loads of money. The thing about the safe was that you never go into there unless you have a good reason - such as taking individual bags of change, or stealing to pay for your mother's kidney dialysis. I went in there only once to get change, and neither of us had mothers who needed dialysis, so there was no explanation for the missing forty quid. Meanwhile, I was running around the stockroom in a panic about the loss of £12 from my till. THERE WAS NO EXPLANATION. Or was there? Yes there was. It was because the till drawer kept sticking so I had to scan stuff through twice. Rose sorted it out for me because she is a hero and I will marry her one day. But what about the missing safe money? SAFE. Neither of us had any explanation or even knew why it was gone. To be fair, it had probably been missing for days and so we decided that the best thing to do would be to blame is on Yuko, who was going back to Japan anyway in a few days. NO NOT REALLY. I think Rose left a note for Jerry (tee-hee) and then we went home.

On the drive home I nearly ran over Rose's cat.

Hmm.

I'm not sure what the point of that story was. There was no real drama, no real intrigue (the worst case situation would be me having to pay £12 to cover the loss), and the resolution was pretty much "I asked Rose and she figured it out for me." It wasn't exciting or funny or gave any insight whatsoever into the human condition. Oh well. Maybe, then, it is a good metaphor for life itself? Who knows? Not me. I do worry that, by selling alcohols and poisons, I am simply now a proponent of the vicious circle of addiction and death that so many people find themselves trapped in; I mean, as I make a living from them, should I now be anti the anti-cigarette movement? Should I paint out the 'Please drink responsibly' sign on posters for booze? Am I selling my soul to cigarette and alcohol companies for £5.50 an hour? I don't know. As the scottish man Thomas Carlyle would have said, I am now a part of the machine. My job is to keep everything lubricated by making the cogs happy and oiled with nicotine and vodka.

That is a sobering thought.

GET IT, SOBERING THOUGHT? I SAID THAT ABOUT EIGHT TIMES LAST NIGHT. IT IS FUNNY BECAUSE I WORK IN A SHOP THAT SELLS DRINK THAT MAKES YOU THE OPPOSITE OF SOBER. lol