Good Morning Jacob...

Letter to my Son
Sunday, 6 April

Spring is all about the birds and bees

Good Morning Jacob…

It all seems to happen at once.  Sure there are some trees that blossom early like the Bradford Pear and some birds that get an early start on housekeeping like maybe the robins but, on the whole, spring waits till April to bloom.  Nearly every tree in the area has leafed-out over the course of this week.  Various insects are taking wing and the ants are digging out from their winter haven underground.  Large black carpenter bees are busy buzzing amidst the blossoms of the Bradford Pear, which are now rapidly losing their petals, having precociously first come to bloom during the early days of March.  Over the past few days it has been the turn of the dogwood to flower forth.  Other trees of the forest must also be in blossom right now as a fine yellow film of pollen is beginning to coat all the cars of the neighborhood that sit outside.  This flurry of airborne pollen will steadily build in intensity, aggravating the sales manager of Classic Chevrolet and other dealerships in the area as their gleaming new cars are transformed into the look of musty items that have set neglected on the shelf too long.  It means good employment for lot boys over the next few weeks as they start fresh each morning washing down all those rows of car to return them to their dazzling, spanking fresh, gleaming new car look. 

Of course, if you have an allergy to all this pollen you needn’t look outside to know that the air is congested with the cause of your annual sinus misery.  Isn’t this a fine howdy do, you must be saying, as the Earth once again reawakens from winter hibernation – your eyes watering, your head choking in all this grand celebration of sex among the foliage.  April becomes a rousing, stiff 5 a.m. for all the flowery stamen of male plants in the forest.  Why can’t they just leave it to the bees to deliver the goods?

Speaking of bees, I am surprised at the number of carpenter bees I have already seen crapped-out dead about the ground from overwork.  Clearly there are too few of them to handle the load right now.  I’m sure the queen is feeling the heat, as well, spending long exhausting hours laying eggs one after another.  There is no more demanding task master than Mother Nature.  I kid you not.  The enterprise that is life makes for a very stressful industrial environment.  Think about it.  From our relatively coddled human status as being top dog over the animal kingdom we can afford our Olympian view of nature as being a pastoral nursery, filled with life-rendering bounty.  Look about you more closely and you see all the animals, great and small, involved in a day to day struggle for survival.  Every creature is locked in competition for the basic necessities of life.  They are ever wary because a moment’s inattention may quickly result in being someone else’s meal.  Your fatal error was to become too absorbed in the sensual pleasure of feeding or napping or whatever it is that makes life special for you and not just an endless grinding process.  Your last vision of this world is that of your killer’s eyes registering its cold starring satisfaction at once again being able to momentarily curb its insistent hunger.  Make yourself over into an animal with four legs and fur or one with feathers and wings and you soon come to realize you survive by using your wits, surrounded and bedeviled by other equally cunning animals, ruthless addicts, driven by the fiercest of all instincts, that of survival.   

A brilliant cardinal makes its presence known perched on a limb near to where I am enjoying my first fresh brewed cup of coffee.  How wonderful is its merry song of greeting to the morning sun.  That’s what I’m thinking as I marmalade my biscuit.  In fact, the fellow over there in his red plumage is doing his earnest best to warn intruders not to steal from his family’s farm.  While the wife tends to the nest this home-owner actually spends considerable time squabbling with other male cardinals over property rights.  This is raising your young without the rule of law.  There is no benefit of arbitration.  There is no court of appeal.  Stay young.  Be fit.  Be always healthy or lose wife, family and home.  Eviction is just one cramped muscle away.

But relax.  We’re human and its spring.  Flowers everywhere will soon be in bloom.

Love,

           Dad

Good Morning Jack...

Letter to my Son
Sunday, 30 March

We're all somebody's meal one day

Good Morning Jack…

I was caught in the rain yesterday while on a long walk.  My clothes were drenched but it didn’t matter.  It’s spring and the rain wasn’t cold.  No more freezing nights.  Soon we will switch from heater to air conditioner here in North Carolina.  But for a short period there won’t be need for either.  Today is right for opening windows and letting the breeze sweep all the winter’s cabin fever from the house. 

Friday a woodpecker came knocking.  He was right above the window to my room.  They really are quite loud.  You’d think they were driving nails with their bill.  How does their brain take all that pounding?  Terns that spend their life diving into water after fish have a similar problem.  Several times each day they collapse their wings and make a high dive attack at their intended meal.  I’m told smacking your head repeatedly does take its toll and they aren’t likely to live more than three years.  What do you think happens?  Do they slowly knock themselves senseless to the point of senility?  Maybe their vision becomes blurred or they start seeing double.  It’s not like they can go to an optometrist and get fitted for corrective lenses.  Every head throbbing dive becomes a lucky miss for the fish.  Eventually it gets to be too much.  How does a bird process the headaches and all this frustration?  Don’t forget their nagging hunger pangs.  Then there are the youngsters.  You’re no longer part of a team providing food for a hungry nest.  Your spouse is left with all the work.  It just won’t do.  Wanted:  healthy tern to replace the worn out one seen sitting lethargic by the water’s edge.  Life is for the young.  Animals in nature don’t enjoy their golden years.  There aren’t any to enjoy.  Your sorry carcass simply becomes someone else’s nutritious meal.  It’s probably not long in coming, either. 

Most every warm-blooded animal gets hungry on a daily basis – birds especially.  They have to fly to stay alive and they don’t have the luxury of carrying around any body fat of consequence.  You ever see a robin with love handles?  If a bird on a limb looks plump you can be guaranteed it is only because they’ve fluffed up their down for warmth. 

So, yes, in the dog-eat-dog world of Mother Nature there is no need for hiring a janitorial service.  If you’re that worn out tern resting at the water’s edge and you hear “Clean up on Aisle 7” – you can rest assured they are talking about you.  The best you can hope for is a humane death of having some ravished predator first bite into the back of your neck.  Lights out. 

If we’re open-minded about the matter we should probably feel gratified that our spent selves provide a meal for more than one worthy individual.  Usually there’s a vertebrate to provide the ceremonial coup de grace.  But they rarely pick your bones clean.  There’s too little left to make it worth the effort of an animal carrying around a large stomach.  Now it’s a race among the insects.  Flies are quick to sense the aroma of your decay and gladly lay their young amidst your tissue.  Of course, you can never count out the energetic search of the enterprising ants.  Now they truly will pick your bones clean.  How many times have you witnessed a parade of these busy-bodies streaming into the eye socket of some dearly departed animal?  By the end of the day, two at the most, every sinus and cranial cavity becomes remarkably spic and span. 

I suppose I’m still a bit touchy about being eaten.  I can’t grasp the aesthetic beauty of being systematically torn limb from limb and devoured.  If that isn’t bad enough then I have to further endure the humiliation of being defecated.  Now doesn’t that make for a classic before and after picture comparison?  No, I much prefer being consumed by flame.  You can scatter my ashes about the base of a desert mesquite bush.  It’s so much more discrete.  They have such fastidious manners when it comes to feeding. 

Love,

           Dad