The Feeding Station on Gillmar Avenue

 

The Feeding Station on Gillmar Avenue

 

A Cosanti Chime announces the breeze.

As Woodpecker shrieks his way

To the suet.

Is it an invitation to feast

Or warning a solitary repast?

Shy Cardinal flits cautiously,

Startled by any movement,

Ready to shrink into the nearest tree.

Bluejay blathers in,

Elbows flailing,

Finding the choicest morsels.

Meanwhile, Mourning Doves

Nonchalantly

Pick at scattered seeds

Dropped from the largess above,

Ready to leave

At the unseen, unheard signal

Erupting in a whirr,

To flee

And whirl

And return

Acting fully nonchalant again.

Hummingbird helicopters through,

Ignoring everyone.

 

                                        Palm Bay, Florida

                                        April 2024

 Hello from Florida

After 15 years at Westminster Village in Scottsdale, Arizona, I have moved to Palm Bay, Florida to live with my son and daughter-in-law.  Last September, my bride of 46 years died of a cancer on the back of her tongue, a "smoker's cancer" according to her doctors - she never smoked, so figure that out.

After due consideration, the family and I agreed to move closer to family, so here I am, an official Floridian with a Florida ID card to prove it.  So a new chapter begins.

Just Plain US

Not too long ago, an American male died while being taken into custody by a group of law-enforcement officers. The officers have been arrested, charged with murder, and are awaiting as their case makes its way through the judicial system. We do follow the rule of law here in America.
In the meantime, large groups of Americans are peaceably protesting against this instance and other instances of police brutality across the country, in the hope that something beneficial will be done now. Also, in the meantime, other groups of Americans are using the above death as an excuse to destroy and loot property, attack and shoot at protesters, innocent by-standers and law-enforcement officers, in the hope that our American way of life will be replaced by something less free than a democracy.
In the background of all this, a large collection of politicians, ably assisted by the media, have been busy ensuring that their compartmentalization of America continues. You know the labels: White, Black, Latino, Jew, Christian, Muslim, African-American, Italian-American, etc. As long as we allow these labels to exist, we will never be able to come together as who we really are – Americans.

Nesting

Our patio wall has been accepted by a pair of Doves as their new home.  They've been busy for the last few days constructing the nest.  We're concerned because we need to get into the storage area next to the nest.  We hope the young mother will fly off to dine somewhere with her partner so we can rescue a few items from storage, such as toilet paper and paper towels.  The nest is right up against the screen and looks to be quite precarious, but they seem to be confident enough that it will suffice time will tell.

Teachers

One day, in our fourth grade classroom, Mrs. Wheat announced that her diamond ring had disappeared and that she would pay a 25¢ reward to any of her students who found it.  Needless to say, we all spent a good number of days with our eyes on the ground, not concentrating too much on what she might have been trying to teach us; 25¢ was big money back then!  But we did get through the school year.  The good/bad news was that the ring had been found, but by Mrs. Wheat herself, in her driveway after the snow melted, so our 25¢ dreams went up in smoke.

Miss Dildine, who would within a year become Mrs. Harrison, instilled in me a love for poetry.  She was a teacher of English, which included grammar, punctuation, pronunciation, enunciation and reading the classics aloud.  The first few weeks of high school were a bewildering experience for me, but I found some semblance of order in her class.  She opened my eyes to the wondrous world of literature, and I am forever grateful for that.

Ethics is an interesting subject, and one of my college professors brought the subject directly to us one day.  It was during the reign of McCarthyism and loyalty oaths.  About three months into the semester, our professor came into the room and announced that our class was dismissed for the semester as he had been fired.  He refused to sign the loyalty oath, not because he was a Communist, or even a Communist sympathizer, but because he believed the requirement to sign was not ethical.  Lesson learned.

  New York Times Sunday crossword puzzles, 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzles, Billiards, genealogical research and pin & ink drawing are just about all that keep me occupied these days.  Life is good.

Billiards

   Another resident, Bob Kaul, and I play a game of English Billiards every Wednesday morning.  We're fairly evenly matched, except this morning when he was off his game.  It's a nice change from 8-ball or 9-ball pool.  There are some videos on YouTube if you're interested in learning how it's played. My days of playing regular Billiards - three balls, no pockets in the table - back in the 40's and 50's seem to help me with angles and carom shots.  But the weekly practice is certainly needed.
   During our freshman year at Oklahoma A & M College - now OSU, having been upgraded to a full-fledged university - a group of us would shoot pool on the only pool table in the Student Union; the other five tables were for Snooker.  When we came from summer break, the pool table had been replaced with another Snooker table.  A much different game, requiring a higher level of skill than pool.  Something about smaller pockets, and a list of rules we always had trouble remembering.  Smitty, Kendig, Stolberg and Gaesser are gone now, just Cohen and me left of the Rochester contingent to carry the OAMC banner on.