There is plenty to talk about ...

An elderly black man, with an Ascot cap on his head and a walking stick on his right hand, was walking in the opposite direction from me on the bike path on a warm summer morning.  The picture he presented and the way he walked made me think he would have some stories to tell.  But, what could be my opening line to stop, and chat with, him?

When it comes to small talk with strangers, I go with my gut instincts.  Some blip on my "chatdar" and the rest do not.  Which is why, for the most part, I keep to myself.  But then, I, too, do not register a blip on many others' chatdars, I am sure.

We were now only a couple of feet away.  And then the distance between us will increase as we keep going our respective ways, with our paths perhaps never to cross again. I still didn't have an opening line.  I was experiencing the small-talk equivalent of a writer's block?

"I never expected to see that" he bellowed.

I was sure he was joking about my outfit and the way I look.  A scrawny Indian man, with chicken legs, and wearing shorts that look like mini-capris, and with a wide-brimmed hat that partially covers his grey-bearded face.  I imagine I am quite a sight on the bike path.

I stopped and looked at him.  I still did not have an conversation opener, nor did I have a response for his comment.  Quite some block in my head!

"A bird flying with a fish in its claws.   What a sight!"

Aha, so it was not about me, after all.  I wonder if by my dying days at least I will overcome this middle-schoolish self-conscious insecurity!

And then he pointed towards the sky.  "There, there."  He was excited like a middle school boy who had chanced on boobs for the first time.

I turned to look.  "Not there.  That is some buzzard" he corrected me.  Little did he know that I can't distinguish a buzzard from a sparrow ;)

"I know what you mean" I told him.  "Once I saw an osprey dropping down as if it was thrown from the sky ..."

" ... and it grabbed a fish from the waters, right?" the black man finished it for me.

"Yes, it was awesome.  One scoop, and it was back in flight again with a fish."

"It is amazing that we have such a beautiful nature preserve right in the middle of the city" he was ecstatic.  So was I.  For one, to share such stories.  For another, my chatdar signal was right about small talk with him.

"Back east where I come from, all we had were rats and rabbits" he laughed.

I wondered if the rats and rabbits alliteration came naturally to him.  Was he a walking poet?  I am always jealous of people who make wonders out of simple words.

"Oh yeah, where from?" I asked him.

"Cleveland.  We had nothing like this there.  Just rats and rabbits"

"And a whole lot of snow."  Hey, in a conversation we relate to the other.  The conversation would die if, for instance, I had asked him, "where is Cleveland?"

"Way more snow than I ever wanted" he chuckled.  "Way more snow" he added for emphasis.

He read my body language that I was ready to continue on.  That too, is a part of having a conversation.  "You  have a great day" he wished me.

"Have an awesome one" I told him as I walked back home.

Bird-brained they might be. Valuable lesson they taught.

Finally, the icy grip loosened. There is plenty of ice all around, yes, but, it was just about warm enough for the melt to begin. People in the neighborhood poked their heads out. I drove up to the grocery store.

A simple act of going grocery shopping. But, what a pleasure it was to stir out of the home, and see people out and about. We smiled at each other--I think we were all subliminally giving that same message of "am I happy to get back to my regular life!"  I suppose it is always thus in life--we never know how good we have until there is a major disruption that forced us to re-evaluate our priorities.  But then, soon we forget those lessons. Aren't we humans the ones that are bird-brained?

I walked past an open checkout counter in order to chat with one of my favorite clerks. She gave me a big smile even before she was done with the customer.

"Things went well with the ice and snow?" I asked her as I moved up to the head of the line.  "I remember you have a long drive to work."

"Yes. But, Friday night was treacherous.  The wipers also stopped working and I could barely see anything out in front.  But I made it back home."

See, right there is a major difference between her employment and mine. Thursday and Friday the campus shut down. But, we get paid anyway.  In her case, I would think that she would have lost wages if she had not reported to work. I was worried that she would turn around and ask me about my drive to work.

Well, she is a good conversationalist and she asked me about my work and the drive.

I flubbed the answer. And cut away to something else.

I returned home and restocked the pantry. Across the window, I noticed that the yard was full of robins. Not crowded enough for me to worry that I had been cast in the remake of Hitchock's Birds. Perhaps more than twenty of them.  For a reason--the ice and snow that were so freakishly unusual had messed up the birds' food sources. I think the couple of robins that visited with me yesterday had spread the word among the robins in the area that perhaps the orangish berry like thingys in my backyard were their only food.

And so they came.

I didn't know what else I could offer these desperate visitors. The only nuts I had--cashews--were salted. I didn't want to offer them chips. Perhaps the multi-grain bread?  I tore up a slice into tiny pieces and tossed them into the snow. The robins didn't even bother to check them out, and they kept going after those berries.

Here is the strangest thing: in all these years that I have lived here, never once have I seen any bird eat them. It was clear that these birds were so starved for food that they were ready to eat these brightly colored ones.  The last time I checked the plant, it looked like they had striped away all the orange and only the green remained. That's ok.

After meeting with the grocery clerk, and after watching the birds, you think I will complain about my life?

You betcha!

I will in a few days. Because, like most of us, I am bird-brained!

I will leave you with this from the old country:

शोकस्थानसहस्राणि दुःखस्थानशतानि च ।
दिवसे दिवसे मूढमाविशन्ति न पण्डितम् ॥

- महाभारत, अरण्य

Everyday there are thousand reasons to feel sad, hundred reasons to worry.
Such things only bother fools; not wise men.

Mahabharata, Aranya

Source

Environmental impacts ... birds and wind turbines

In my intro class, I routinely remind students that every economic activity has its own set of environmental impacts, and that there are no technical answers to those challenges--as in technical answers for zero impacts.  Which is why then we resolve those trade-offs in the political domain.  I am not sure whether all the students understand this, but I know that some really do.
The video here is an example of one such impact:

Now, compare this with the other kind of impact on birds--the BP gusher in the Gulf Of Mexico

Which trade-off do you prefer?  Quite a Morton's Fork, right?

Can't take my eyes off you :(

More here from the National Geographic