A Happy Song
We know that birds’ singing has to do with territory and breeding rights. Male birds sing to attract females and warn away other males. These songs include threat and intimidation, and perhaps, in the more complicated songs, the insinuation of legal action. It’s the grim business of earning a living in a grim world. Each song has its own subtle sound, the idiosyncracies of its singer. It turns out, though, that the females don’t really value innovation and invention and generally mate with males that sing the most ordinary, traditional tune. There is always, though, some poor sap that doesn’t get it, sitting alone on his branch practicing and polishing his peculiar version until it flows as smoothly as water through the streambed, a happy song that fills us with joy on this first warm day of the year.
Football
I like black bears. They are relatively common around
here, and they are usually not aggressive. Actually,
they are generally affable, loners mostly, but not
opposed to hanging out with humans now and then.
In fact, I’ve found that in many ways they are a lot
like us.
My friend, Richard, an older male, drops by now and
then and we hang out down on the shore, have a
couple of beers, but mostly we just sit and look out
at the water. We don’t have a lot to say. We aren’t
friends exactly, but we enjoy the company. Richard
says, at our age we don’t have friends. We have
associates.
