Month: November 2021

I suppose that it is a very human survival technique to to set aside memories of past tragedies and instead place the best times we had front and center in our minds. As the years go by we often long for what we call “the good old days.” If we were lucky enough to enjoy life with a loving family in a safe and secure environment we often idealize our histories and think of times past as being somehow so much better than the current world of uncertainty. We get stuck in a kind of fantasy desire to hark back to a time when things felt more stable and hopeful. Instead of looking forward, changing for the future, we cling to old ways that no longer work like they once did. 

The young are generally risk takers. They see a future ahead that is filled with possibilities. The old often just feel tired. They have traveled through decades of hard work and they don’t really want to have to learn new ways of doing things. They sometimes fear the march of progress and dream of an earlier time when everything seemed to make more sense. 

I adored my grandfather, William Mack Little, because he was a forward thinking man even as he reached an age beyond one hundred years. He viewed his life with a joyful lens that celebrated the wonder of progress and innovation. While he had delightful stories of his youth, he always remarked that those times were really difficult and that he would never want anyone to have to return to the hardships that everyone endured back then. Instead he marveled at the innovations that he had witnessed from one decade to another and urged me and my brothers to never become so fossilized in our thinking that we would be unable to appreciate the inventiveness of humankind. 

Grandpa was in awe of advances whether they be in science, medicine, or politics and societal mores. He celebrated vaccines and medicines because he had grown up in a time when smallpox, measles, polio, tuberculosis and other dreaded diseases regularly took the lives of people across the globe. He recalled bitter winters when the only heat came from a wood fire and hot summers that bred mosquitoes and sweat. He spoke of the first time that he saw a city lit up by electricity and the first plane that he saw flying in the sky. He marveled at new laws that provided social security, Medicare and equality, often wondering why it took so long for our country to provide such safety nets for all people. 

Grandpa had witnessed extreme poverty and want as a young man. Coxey’s Army of desperately hungry and poor citizens had marched through his town on their way to protest their fate in Washington D.C. He had watched white men taking advantage of Native Americans in Oklahoma to gain deeds to oil rich land. He had lost every dime of his savings when my grandmother became ill with cancer before the government protected the elderly with medical plans that ensured access to care. He rejoiced that our government had been courageous enough to right wrongs time and again. Always he proclaimed that the good old days are in the present, not the past. 

My grandfather died back in the nineteen eighties at the age of one hundred eight. He was a joyful man who was sentimental about his love for my grandmother, but little else. He felt that what is best about life is a willingness to keep moving forward, keep improving on the past. He never was stuck in some personal vision of an idyllic past. Instead he was realist who understood that times have always been changing and always will. He embraced the future. 

The acceleration of knowledge and understanding of the world is incredible. We have boundless information available to us at our fingertips. Our laptops and tablets are provide us with instant gratification of our curiosity. We have the ability to research virtually any topic, but all too often we rely on opinions rather than facts. We don’t take the time to really learn about issues on which our futures hinge. 

My grandfather studied the world. He searched for truth. In that regard he learned to become flexible and open and willing to change his ways of thinking and doing things. He was the polar opposite of someone stuck in the past. If he were still here I am certain he would be quite excited about alternative energy, electric cars, the Internet, smart phones, and all of the innovations that have happened since his death. He would urge us all to keep our minds open and to take advantage of the remarkable progress that we have made since he was a boy. 

I suspect that my grandfather would have been vaccinated against COVID-19. He would have been confused by those who turn their backs on such a miraculous way of managing a deadly virus. He would be cheering the times and be astounded at how well we have managed in spite of a worldwide pandemic. He would find the sacrifices we are making to be ridiculously easy compared to what he saw in the almost eleven decades of his life. He would smile. Tell us to celebrate our good fortune and to embrace those attempting to plan for an even better future. Grandpa Little was never ever stuck in the past. We should all follow his lead.

Halloween Eve was not fun this year. We awoke to a fall chill inside our home and the sound of a bird chirping nearby. At first I thought that I was dreaming, but when the shrill cry continued and my husband Mike heard it as well, I knew that something was amiss. A quick search of the house revealed other birds slamming against our windows as though they were attempting to find a way to enter. It was all rather bizarre and Hitchcock-like. 

At first we wondered if we were just imagining things because the sound of the bird suddenly ceased and we were unable to see any signs of the creature. Then we spotted him shivering with fear in a corner of our bedroom. Since I had experienced a similar incident when I was a child I knew what we needed to do to guide the little guy to our back door and out of the house. 

First we closed every door that led to another room. Then we pulled the back door wide open. With a bit of patience we managed to lure the creature out of our bedroom but in his fear he chose to fly upstairs rather than in the direction of freedom. Our next goal was to keep him downstairs and hope that we would be able to help him understand that there was a way out. Once we got him back into the lower part of the house I stood guard on the upstairs landing like a living scarecrow, which was not too difficult to do since my I was still in my jammies with a shock of tousled bed hair making me look rather frightful to man or beast. 

In the meantime Mike was downstairs slowly but surely leading the bird to the kitchen where we hoped he would feel the breeze from the outdoors and follow his instincts back to his home in the trees. It took a bit longer than we expected, but no doubt sheer terror had overtaken his limited ability to think. We laughed ecstatically as soon as he flew onto the back patio and immediately slammed the door shut lest he become disoriented and come back inside. 

A tour of the house provided evidence of what must have been a horrific night for him. He had left droppings on window sills, the floor and sections of the carpet in many different areas as he searched for an escape from his terror. I felt terrible that we did not notice him sooner. I had heard some strange sounds in the night, but I laid them off to the usual things that go bump in the night. He was so tiny that he hardly created a stir even when he was in full flight.

I have no idea how he got inside. Mike had been doing some work in the garage and he has a bad habit of leaving the garage door and the door to the house wide open when he is busy puttering at his work bench. I suspect that the little guy erroneously flew inside and then got confused and finally trapped. I can’t think of any other possibility, but then who knows?

Luckily the bird was so tiny. When I was a child we had a fully grown crackle get inside through an open window without a screen. My brother had removed the covering on a very hot summer day thinking that he might get a bit more air without an obstruction. What he got instead was a large bird that became hysterical in its fight for freedom. As he flitted from one perch to another he knocked over lamps and broke bric-a-brac including my collection of ceramic animals that I had gathered from friends and vacations over the years. I literally cried watching the creature destroying my things like a real life bull in a china shop. 

We finally realized that our only recourse was to seal off all other rooms and open my brother’s bedroom window as much as possible. It seemed like time stood still as the poor animal dive bombed toward us in defensive posture. We were running and screaming in chaos like crazed cats. Little wonder that the poor bird was behaving like a star in The Birds. I can’t say who was more frightened as the battle to rid ourselves of the intruder ensued.

With sheer luck that old crackle finally dove toward the open window and into infinity and beyond. We cheered and sealed the opening as quickly as possible, then found the screen and replaced it on the window. Once we all felt safe we laughed at our adventure and put it in our book of exciting childhood memories. I never thought that I would relive that moment again, but the day before Halloween 2021, there it was. We had our real live version of horror with a little harmless bird. 

I must admit that I worried for a bit that we would not be able to get the creature back outside. I had boasted to Mike that I knew what to do without telling him about the mass confusion that had ensued in my childhood under a similar circumstance. I only hope that we would be successful but wondered in the back of my mind if we would have to call an animal removal service. Mostly I feared that the poor creature might actually die inside the house, a situation that I could not bear to even imagine. My heart took wings when he made it back into nature.

We never quite know what to expect when we arise each morning. I’ve learned over time to be ready for almost anything, even having a bird trapped inside my home. We live with the creatures of the earth. We build on their land, overtake their habitats and think little about how we have invaded them. I wonder if they are happy when we leave their space. I think that may be the case. Perhaps we should consider them just a bit more.