Dick MacKenzie
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Tail tale

10/27/2014

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Hobo's tail feathers are sprouting like mung bean seeds (ah, remember the days when we were all going to be living a full life of self sufficiency on a tiny piece of land, raising chickens, rabbits, and a goat, and eating sprouts grown in a mason jar... ha, ha, another story).
Judging by the rapid growth of his tail feathers, I'd say ol' Hobo must have very recently donated his tail to a predator when I first saw him last weekend.
All summer I have been on the lookout for Romeo, the cat that snuck into the cabin and hid out under my bed, in the spring. I think if he were still around I'd have spotted him a time or two. I haven't, but I have wondered once in awhile about him, and I have wondered why mice are so scarce this summer.
Last weekend, as I sat on the deck meditating with a glass of wine, I thought I heard a cat. I listened for quite a while after that, but didn't hear any more. Eventually I decided that what sounded like "meow" was more likely my empty glass whispering "more" and I did what I had to do. It's a miserable experience to hear the pitiful cries from an empty glass, and as evening turned to night I forgot about Romeo.
Last night Mary and I enjoyed another beautiful Friday evening sunset from our deck at camp, surrounded by Hobo and a dozen of his comrades busily tucking sunflower seeds into winter stashes in the nearby trees.
The picture on the left is Hobo last weekend. On the right, Hobo shows a new growth of feathers that must measure about an inch long that have come in during the week. I'm told that sometimes a second planting of tail feathers will be all white. I'll be watching with special interest. If the tail doesn't grow in white I probably won't be able to pick Hobo out of the crowd by the time Daylight Saving Time ends next weekend.
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Hobo and Sandra

10/18/2014

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Hobo, a chickadee without a tail, has been flitting in and out of my feeder for the past couple days. He stands out from the dozen other chickadees madly snacking on sunflower seeds because he has no tail feathers and he looks strange. Freak-like some might describe.
As I sit admiring Hobo, the cheerful, unassuming, hard-working, freak-bird finding his spot among the seeds with all the other feathered feeders my mind wanders to a night more than 50 years ago when I was a boy 12 or 13 years old.
Sandra was a neighborhood girl about my age. She lived just down the street.
Our little gang of friends didn’t see much of Sandra. Never included her in our play. She’d had rheumatic fever and was weak and sickly. We were told she was fragile, delicate, had a bad heart. And she was not a pretty girl – not by a long shot.
We didn’t hate her. We just didn’t think about her much.
One late summer day Sandra came to my house to invite me, as her special guest, to her birthday party. I was 12 or 13. Puberty was in high gear. It was raging. It was out of control. Girls were the world. How I wished I could go to the party with Betty, Joan, Mary, Susan, Janis or any one of the good ones.
I said yes to Sandra.
The night of the party, in the basement rec room of Sandra’s parents’ home, came eventually. Although I’d spent a couple weeks wishing I were somebody else’s date, I couldn’t figure out a way to weasel out of my commitment, so I washed up and cleaned up and trudged up the block to Sandra’s house.
The party was fine. It was a bunch of kids doing kids’ stuff, but typical for the times and young people our ages. Nothing as risqué as spin the bottle.
The highlight of the party was dance time. I don’t remember what the first record was – probably Rockin’ Robin or I Just Want To Be Your Teddy Bear, or some such romantic music of the era.
Greatly embarrassed, I asked Sandra for the first dance.
A gangly, scrawny kid and the world’s homeliest girl stepped up awkwardly and tentatively, all alone on the tiny dance floor, embraced with the music… and were greeted with the most enthusiastic cheers and claps that could ever rise from a gang of fellow adolescents.
It was magic. Sandra was the most beautiful woman in the world at that moment. She was an absolute sparkling princess. And I was transformed from an embarrassed kid to a proud prince for a wonderful moment.
I don’t know what ever became of Sandra, but every once in a while I wonder.
She may have received her high school diploma in a hospital bed and died the following week after a long struggle with poor health.
Or maybe she has made a great contribution to humankind, confined to a wheelchair like Stephen Hawking.
Perhaps Sandra, somewhere, sees a scene of nature that kindles a kind memory and adds a puzzle piece to the picture that has created her.
I just saw a bird without a tail.
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SIOUX LOOKOUT WEATHER
P.O. Box 1464
Sioux Lookout, Ontario  P8T 1B9
807-738-BOAT (2628)
dick@dickmackenzie.com
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