A Baby Starling in a Garbage Bin

This is a repost of a piece I wrote seven years ago...

A few days back after trimming my front evergreen bushes I sauntered out to my back yard behind the shed where I keep my large brown plastic all-purpose trash bin. Outside of spring and fall, I rarely use it, but since the shrubs were getting a bit ragged looking, I knew it was time to cut and rake. 

When I leaned down to pick it up, I was startled by a little waif starling flopping around on the bottom.  Poor thing must’ve fallen from its mama’s nest in the tree above.  But I don’t think it had tumbled in just the past day or two, for the floor of the can was spattered nearly white with droppings.  My guess is the mother had been swooping in to try and feed the little one in hopes to get it strong enough to eventually flap wildly and perhaps gain the altitude to scale the slick three-foot circular wall.  

Seeing its predicament I gently turned the preformed prison on the side and then slightly angled it so the tyke would slide down into the compost heap of old leaves and grass clippings I keep back there. When I pulled the tub away I looked down at this helpless creature staring up at me and cheeping with its head slightly cocked.  I don’t think it knew to be scared.  I had a rake so I flipped it around and ever so lightly nudged the fella with the handle trying to see if it might extend its wings.  It tried, but obviously, they hadn’t been developed much yet despite its growing adolescent size.

Above me a starling began to chirp, and I realized it must be mom.  So I stepped back  quietly and went around front to finish my work.  When I returned ten minutes later the parent had coaxed the little one out into the back driveway.  I sat down on the step of my shed to watch what might transpire.  By and by the youngster flitted furiously enough to work its way up a chain link fence, where the mother waited.  It made several attempts to fly, with mixed results. 

However, as time drifted along, it eventually figured out how to escalate a few times and glide enough to make it to a low hanging branch.  I figured other lessons would continue over the week, and in the not-too-distant future the shiny black bird might be able to set out on its own.

In subsequent days I went out to check and never saw it, so my hopes were high that it had succeeded.

A few weeks ago I was blessed to meet April, a sophomore at Silliman University in Dumaguete City on one of the central islands of the Philippines.  She is part of Compassion International’s Leadership Development Program (LDP) that identifies and provides a college scholarship to deserving students who have grown up in our sponsorship program.  Like close to 1.5 million others like her around the world that Compassion is involved with, April comes from “the poorest of the poor.”  Over 80% of the Philippines’ 91 million people live below the poverty line, and the majority of those, including April, survive on less than $2 per day.

But through her sponsor, April was given a “hand up” that helped greatly with her nutrition, health care, clothing, skills training, and tutoring from her developmental years in kindergarten all the way through high school.  With tears glistening in her eyes over lunch one day, she told me that if it hadn’t been for her advocate in the States and his loving letters of encouragement, she would have never come to know Christ.  “My relationship with Jesus means everything.  There is no conceivable way to make sense of what I have come through without God in the center of it.”

Despite being raised in a two room scrap-metal shack in an oppressive slum, she became the first in her family to graduate from high school (with honors no less), and now is among the elite at Silliman (a school of 7,000) where she is recognized as one of the leaders and top students. 

April may have been born into poverty, but poverty wasn’t born into her.

Initially, she thought of getting a degree in either Nursing or Tourism…but now she has settled on a Bachelor of Science in Sociology.  “Our nation needs social workers who truly understand the needs of the poor, and not only will help direct, but even change the systems that are in place for the better.”

Like most Filipino women, April is demur and tiny of stature, with piercing black eyes and even darker, silky long hair.  But she is also fierce, feisty…and incredibly grateful.  I couldn’t help but think of that little starling in my back yard.  I will be praying that even as April was helped, she will in turn lead many others into a better place.

Riding with my family in a '58 Buick
I can still recall
How we'd drive through the valley
To my Grandmother's house
Every summer vacation
When I was small
And I'd gaze out the window
At the farms and the orchards
And the sound of our motor
Would frighten the starlings
And they'd rise from the fields to fly

 
My mother would grumble

"Those birds are a curse
They're a thorn in the farmers’ side”
But I couldn't help feeling sad and inspired
By their desperate ballet in the sky

 Say a prayer for the starlings
A hot, dry wind beats their ragged wings
Have a thought for the starlings
No one ever listens to the songs they sing
Say a prayer for the starlings
There's no welcome for them anywhere
Leave some crumbs for the starlings
They say that winter will be cold this year

 She was sitting on a curb by the Seven Eleven
She asked if I had some spare change
Her skin wore that leathered and wind burned look
And the light in her blue eyes was wild and strange
I sat down beside her and asked her her name
She said, “Pick one you like, I need something to eat"
And her life made me think
Of the dead leaves in autumn
Drifting like ghosts down the street

 Is the life that we celebrate only a dream
A lie that we serve like a god made of stone
And our hearts are the hunter
Birds with no nesting place
Weary and aching for home
Say a prayer for the starlings
A hot, dry wind beats their ragged wings
Have a thought for the starlings
No one ever listens to the songs they sing
Say a prayer for the starlings
There's no welcome for them anywhere
Leave some crumbs for the starlings
They say that winter will be cold this year

 (“Starlings” by Randy Stonehill, Return to Paradise, 1989)



To find out how to sponsor a child go to:
 http://compassion.com

Wasp Attack!

In August a few years back I returned to my Nashville home after one of my regular visits to see my folks in Pittsburgh. I’m one of those guys that—especially when driving alone—likes to get the trip over with. No dawdling for this trooper. Wolf down some food, fill ‘er up, take a tinkle, and keep rollin’.

So when I pulled up in front of my place in the historic 12 South District at around 5 in the afternoon after 600 miles in nine hours, I was more than ready for a relaxing evening. Ever notice how when you get out of car at the end of a long journey that there is literally some sort of decompression that happens to your head? Must have something to do with listening to King’s X at concert volume, and pumped AC. All I know is that when I popped my passenger door, the thick Cumberland Valley air and ninety degree temperature fogged my glasses, not to mention my other sensory perceptions. I think a pressure headache formed behind my eye sockets in about 6.7 seconds.

I nodded “hello” to my neighbors as I shuffled up the walkway and front steps with two suitcases, a briefcase, and some hangered clothes draped over my shoulder. I fumbled for my keys and began fidgeting with the dead bolt lock on my front door.

That rather minute vibration set off a chain reaction of events that are humorous in retrospect, but were painful in the moment.

I had been gone for a week from my artist management company that was based out of the second floor of my home. My Director of Operations, Rann, should’ve given me some warning about what I was walking into…but somehow it just slipped his mind. You see, a wasp’s nest had formed in the archway above my front porch. He and the other employees had all been frightened of them for several days and began using the back entrance. A little note on the front door could’ve saved me opening that tallboy of whupass that I was about to drink in.

Quicker than you could say “Sweet Agnes Sixbutts,” I was swarmed upon by a dozens of perturbed wasps that had set up shop above my doorway. I got stung six times in a matter of less than three seconds. I dropped all my belongings and nearly flew down those eight steps, twisting, waving arms around my skull, and spasmodically screaming like the Tasmanian Devil. I don’t think the chic singer from The Cranberries could’ve sounded any worse. I’m confident my neighbors thought I had utterly flipped-out---after all, those insects weren’t visible from a hundred feet away. My reactions, however, were quite the spectacle as I careened around my lawn a couple of times leaping, dipping, and dodging as I tried to evade the remaining few hornets that were in attack mode.

This is not the sort of “howdy-do” I was expecting at the completion of my long pilgrimage.
Within half a minute, the furious squadron returned to home base. My adrenaline had kicked into hyper drive. With heart pounding, and nerves near the skin pulsating in pain from the wicked bites on my cheek, neck and arms, I became a man possessed. They picked the wrong night to piddle in MY Post Toasties.

Leaving all my belongings akimbo on the front porch, with keys still dangling out of the lock, I marched around to the back to retrieve my safety key from its hidden location. Because my muscles were still a bit atrophied from the long drive, as well as the rage that was coursing through my veins, I tripped on the edge of the deck, falling heavily forward onto my chin, cutting my leg and spraining my wrist. Once again, my neighbors who saw the entire fiasco must've thought I was applying as an extra for the Soupy Sails Show.

I’m not sure how it is with you, but when I am angry and hurt, it becomes a powerful combination. My resolve at that moment to do something about those winged assassins was about five digits beyond meltdown on the ol’ “look out he’s pissed” meter.

With glasses now freshly hazing over again—this time from the AC inside the house, I gathered-up all the insect spray I could find, some work gloves, a jacket, and a chair. I believe I came up with several hitherto untried combinations of epithets and play-by-play commentary on variations of some not-so-wholesome bodily functions as I was yelling at no one in particular. Kind of like Nicholas Cage when he goes berserk in a film.

Circling back around to the front, I surveyed the porch—seems the wasps were back in construction mode. So I stealthily crept up the steps and grabbed my belongings, taking great care not to vibrate the foundation with any of my movements.

Then I unwound my garden hose, and while positioned about twenty feet away in the front yard, opened the spigot to full, and let fly on the nest. Hundreds of those black hellions scattered. And while they were fiesty there was no way they could match my seething temper. “Die, you flesh eating scabbards!” I muttered under my breath. After unleashing innumerable gallons on them, I sensed that a goodly portion had either drowned or flown the coop.

Like Patton chasing Rommel, I hurtled back up those stairs, mounted my chair, and sprayed copious amounts of flying insect killer all over that entrance way. Some of them were still buzzing and flailing in their moistened state, and I took great delight in mashing any that I could with my fists. I know I got stung a few more times, but the rush of battle was over-riding the immediate pain.

Rest assured, those bugs are no longer with us. They had been dispensed to the nether regions by one very determined and angry road-weary sojourner. I didn't care if I got hit a dozen more times, they were about to travel to that Great Arachnid in the Sky for their reward. “They shant be stinging anyone again in THIS life,” I decreed.

Once the insectide eradication was finished, I entered my home, sat down for a cold drink, and let the adrenaline subside. Much of the rest of the night was spent tending to my stings, abrasions, bruised chin, and the sprained wrist, rather than stretching out in my lazy boy. I should’ve bought stock in Advil for all I ingested that muggy late summer’s eve. Sleep did not come easy, I can guarantee you that.

Now, every spring and throughout the warm months, I regularly embark on search and destroy missions with even the slightest hint of a wasp nest. No more surprise attacks for this weary traveler if I can avoid it! I am one W.A.S.P. who has no kinship with his winged brethren.