My magpies are gone! I haven’t seen them all summer. For years a noisy pair of large birds (I called them Heckle and Jeckle after the cartoon characters.) harassed neighborhood cats during the warmer months of the year. They were menaces — squawked continuously, dive bombed any feline caught out in the open, or squirrel who ventured onto electric lines or utility cables.
One unfortunate old squirrel clung precariously to the line, flapping his tail over the side, back and forth, this way and that, trying to keep his balance as he fled and dodged black and white flapping wings and pecking beaks. He was then knocked completely off the wire, fell to the ground with a loud thump, lay still for a moment, then ran off with a magpie diving furiously after.
I felt sorry for my little furry friends until a couple of years ago. During the winter when the branches were bare, I noticed a big and messy magpie nest in the neighbor’s lilac bush right beside my grape arbor. Like a heap of trash caught in the crotch of a tree after a flood — it was easy to spot. They use them over and over again, year after year.
As spring progressed the mother and father birds returned, got busy, made repairs and finally the female settled in for the long stretch as she waited for her eggs to hatch.
I never checked to see but assumed there were babies because my tabbies and calicos lurked about under the bushes in the neighbor’s yard, eyeing the nest. Like small tigers they jumped onto the roof of the garage, crept down the slope to the lilac bush and snuck along the branches toward the nest. The father bird would squawk and fly angrily at the cats — the mother would join the chorus. Cats are very patient, they’d wait. Babies have to leave the nest eventually and fledgling chicks learning to fly often hop about the ground.
Both cats and squirrels probably deserved whatever the birds dished out because I’ve seen squirrels raid bird nests. A fat fellow will make himself comfortable beside a nest, pick up eggs one at a time, roll them over and over, then drop them to the ground while smaller birds, robins, sparrows or finches, flutter and fuss helplessly nearby. Magpies are big enough to effectively implement their declaration of war.
This year I did not see or hear my birds all summer. I wonder if they succumbed to bird flu, West Nile virus, old age, a neighbor kids B.B. gun or one of my cats got them. My cross-eyed siamese is an amazing hunter — she has bagged squirrels and pheasants so a magpie although difficult would probably not be impossible for her.
I never thought I’d say this but I miss that backyard ruckus.
A Tale of Cats and Magpies October 9, 2007
Sunday Comics September 1, 2007
Sunday Comics
by Dixie Thomas Reale
We were radiant. My sister, Jose, and I had scrubbed ourselves from head to toe in the galvanized wash tub set up in back of the pot bellied stove. A green army blanket draped across that corner made it private while father, in his rocking chair, guarded our innocence from behind his magazine.
Then Mama dipped a comb into in a glass of water, wet my hair down, pulled it back and braided it tight. Jose’s wheat colored curls were much too short for pig tails. Long violet ribbons tied up our hair and tiny lavender bows held forget-me-nots in small bundles across the print of our dresses, still stiff with new from the store. We’d spit-shined our white patent leather shoes and little purses where we kept dimes for the collection plate.
It was our Sunday morning routine. Daddy would drop us off at the Golden Gate Baptist Church for Sunday school then go to the Green Lantern for coffee and a piece of cherry pie. He did this every week.
In primary, we sang “Jesus loves me” and “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine.” We held up a finger to represent our flame. I showed Jose my middle finger; we giggled loud and sat down on our chairs. Teacher made a hissing noise like steam from a tea kettle and pointed her claw at us.
She told about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Teacher moved odd shapes around a flannel board set up in front of the room, called one Forbidden Fruit, said Eve was tempted. I’d heard the story before and knew Eve was in for big trouble.
“Don’t eat the apple!” I called. Alice Mills frowned at me. I shoved out my chin at her.
When it was time to go home, Jose and I burst through the annex doors and tore pell mell past the front steps of the chapel. The congregation was just coming out. A blue 1938 Desoto sat in its usual place. After Daddy finished his coffee and pie, he would always park the car parallel to the curb in front of the church, throw the funny papers in the back seat and read the news while he waited for Sunday school to let out.
We clawed and shoved one another, each anxious to get to the comics first. I jerked open the back door on the passenger side as Jose went around to the driver’s side. We pounced on the funnies strewn across the seat, kicking and slapping, dividing up the pages.
“I get Smoky Stover and Li’l Abner,” I announced.
“You can have stupid old Smoky; I want Dick Tracy.” Jose grabbed her favorites, shoved an elbow into my ribs and smirked.
Little LuLu was on the same page as Dagwood and Blondie and I wasn’t about to let her have that one. Jose was nearly four years older but had always been sickly. I was younger but stocky, close to the ground, like a bull dog. I could hold my own in a scrap and loved to show her. It made me feel big and powerful. We were fairly evenly matched as we wrestled on the seat. Her weak spot was her hair. I entangled one hand into curls and pulled. She screamed as she slid to the floor, braced her shoulders against the back of the front seat and raised a foot to kick me.
“What the Hell’s going on back there?” A man’s voice bellowed. A sharp nose, skinny face and wire framed glasses peered over the driver’s seat where Daddy’s squashed features and bushy black eyebrows should have been.
That was not our father.
This man was blond; Daddy was dark haired. Jose and I looked at one another. The upholstery was all wrong — rather than fuzzy gray seats the back seat was tan with little metallic threads running through the fabric. This was not our car. It smelled like cigarettes. Our daddy didn’t smoke.
I turned loose of Jose’s hair, laid the paper down and we crawled out, each by a separate door. From the sidewalk I could see the tail lights were different, big and protruding and the car was a dusty blue, ours was blue green.
We tried to sneak away hoping nobody would notice, but of course everybody gawked. Billy Norris, the bully, glared at me backwards over his shoulder as he opened the front door of that very car. The skinny blond man must be his father.
Just then I saw Daddy’s car turn the corner up the block. Jose and I raced to meet him singing, “Jesus wants me for a sunbeam.”
We clawed and shoved one another, each anxious to get to the comics first.
“I get Smokey Stover!” I announced and ran faster.
“Sunday Comics” was originally published in Nostalgia and is included in Squirrel Pie and Other Morsels.
Hello world! August 15, 2007
I am having my morning coffee and wondering why in August the sunshine seems more golden colored. Have you ever noticed that? Is it that “certain slant of light on summer afternoons that opresses like the weight of cathedral tunes,” as Emily Dickenson would say. Is it because the sun’s rays hit the earth at a particular angle and it travels through more dust on its way to the ground or is it because vegetation is dry and yellow or brown (golden colored) during late summer and coloring my vision?
