Category: Humor

It was Jeff Foxworthy’s birthday yesterday. Those who consider themselves superior to rednecks will sneer. The joke is on them. Mr. Foxworthy is one smart dude and an author of one of my favorite children’s books “Dirt On My Shirt“.

In homáge to the concept and in recognition of the Fall migration I offer “You Might Be A Birder If…”

1. You take binoculars when fishing.
2. The possibility that you will tap your brakes to get a better look at a bird on the wing is very real
3. You worry that your insurance agent reads your blog posts
4. You get a little lump in your throat when your wife texts you that she thinks she saw a (fill in the blank) at the feeder
5. You are glad you do not have a corner office with a window because you know you would never get any work done
6. If you get a corner office you install a bird feeder, then blinds. Face it, you are conflicted
7. It is perfectly normal to keep a year list on your Google Drive because it can be accessed in the field from your smart phone or from your desktop when you get back home and have had the opportunity to cross check your reference materials
8. You die a little bit if you catch yourself saying “seagull”
9. You think the girls at the Ed Sullivan Show were a little bit over the top at Elvis but your would understand if it were Kenn Kauffman
10. When you hear “Birds of a feather flock together.” you think “Well, in most cases, but not always.”
11. You were asked to take pictures of your son’s birthday party but the boy to bird ratio heavily favors the birds
12. No new projects at work can be due in April or October. There are more important things that must be attended to
13. You want to invent a time machine only because you want to stop the guy who introduced the EUST to the United States
14. You didn’t have to look up the banding abbreviation for European Starling (I did)

In all honesty I do not consider myself a birder. I’m not that committed. I don’t see my lists as a competitive pursuit. I simply enjoy observing the endless variety, beauty and complexity of nature. I hope if you do see yourself in any of the items on my list you will see we are kindred spirits and allow a smile.

Happy birding!

It can’t be very fun to be a squirrel. That thought struck me as I pulled in my driveway this evening. Somehow the garage door was accidentally open and there was a squirrel hanging out in our garage.

I tried to shoo the little fellow but he looked like he was in no hurry to leave. Think about it. If the best home you ever lived in was a bunch of leaves stuck high in a bare tree, a crappy suburban garage built in 1959 would seem like a mansion.

Like I said, I tried to get the furry rodent to skedaddle, but he just hid somewhere. I tried to put myself in his shoes (I know, squirrels rarely wear shoes) for a minute. The poor think probably spent half the fall running around collecting and hiding nuts only to forget where they were or have some screeching blue jay steal them. In contrast, I can have Nutella any time I please and I never have to fight Cyanocitta cristata for it.

As far as I know he is still somewhere in the garage. As long as he doesn’t pull a Kato to my Inspector Clouseau and drop out of the rafters on me, I’m willing to let him live the high life for a bit.

My workplace is very lively and we have fun activities in a nearly unbroken succession. The latest wackiness involves my pals delivering pictures of themselves in high school to a bulletin board. These photos are posted with no labels. We then guess who is who.

It is easy to spot the younger members of the team, of which there are many. Let’s admit that the rest of us have changed over time. Some of us have changed for the better, some for the worse.

I submitted my senior portrait. The consensus is that I look like a 70’s news anchor or a game show host. Not a game show host like Howie Mandel, more like John Davidson.

I’ve explained that young men did not wear their hair short in the 80’s. The only fellows that had their ears exposed in those days were convicts and service members. It was then that I had an epiphany. The reason so many 70’s and 80’s TV shows were easy to spot as cheesy was due to the guys all having contemporary hair styles.

Look at Happy Days, Fonzie had an almost pompadour, but it was feathered. Chachi  TOTALLY looked like he stepped off the disco floor.

Look at the cops in TV shows of the era. They all had a massive head of hair.  Their mustaches extended FAR beyond the corners of their lips. Don’t even get me started on the Village People.

Finally, look at STRIPES. Only John Candy and Sgt. Hulka had regulation haircuts. John Larroquette’s hair was just this site of Oscar Gamble.

So, here is my new law. If you are not committed enough to your character to get a haircut, you will be an object of ridicule when the current trend fades.