The weather has started to cool off a little — well, maybe not really. Peaks and valleys. Thank
God for that October chill, though. There is nothing I like better than walking around with a fuzzy beanie on my head and an iced coffee in my hand.
The other night — I think it was a Wednesday but it could’ve been a Thursday — I was walking down my street just after the sun went down. Some people have that guilty pleasure where they look in people’s well-lit windows when it gets dark out. I don’t think of it like that. I’m just quite curious.
A few houses down, on the top floor of a double decker, an elderly man with a bird on his shoulder stood in his window. An amber light shone down on the pair of them, so there’s no way for me to tell what color the bird really was, but I think he was something like blue and orange and yellow. I also wasn’t wearing my glasses — so who’s to say if it was really a bird at all.
Well, I guess I am to say that it was a bird. We will go with the bird. I followed their gazes to find that, in the hazy night, a Harvest Moon sat high in the midnight (more like 9:30 p.m.) blue.
It was beautiful, and also very sad.
As I continued to walk home, I wondered about the man’s life with his bird. Maybe the man’s name is Franklin, and maybe Harvest Moon by Neil Young used to be Franklin and his wife Dorothy’s song. But then Dorothy left him for a richer man. Perhaps the richer man has a jet ski and he rides it around in the Nantucket Sound in the summer, packs it up and drives it down to Florida so he can ride it in the winter, too.
Maybe the bird is all Franklin got in the divorce (Dorothy never remembered to feed it, anyway). The bird’s name is probably Peggy, and the bird (assuming its feathers are, in fact, those beautiful blues and oranges and yellows) is old Frank’s prized possession.
And why shouldn’t she be?
With a bird like that, you could win big. Of course, it would have to be trained — so, maybe Franklin and Peggy were taking a break in the window to look at the Harvest Moon because they had been training all day for the upcoming Bird Competition. After all, Peggy’s not going to win on looks alone — I mean, she’s a pretty bird and all, but let’s get serious.
Let’s get serious — okay, so I made all this stuff up.
And, as I concluded my walk and unlocked my door, I felt a pang of sadness: what if Peggy doesn’t win? What will Franklin do? He can’t keep watching reruns of Family Feud until he drifts to sleep forever! Oh, who are we kidding. He’ll be doing that regardless — that Steve Harvey is a hoot.
It was all my fault. Who wouldn’t feel sad after making up a story like that?!
But what an interesting situation to be in.
As I got into my jammies and took some sips of water (and then instantly regretted it because now I’d have to pee in the middle of the night), I realized that if I could imagine something so sad, I could dream up something better for Franklin and Peg.
They won gold at the Bird Competition. The judges want to fly them out (or I guess, fly Franklin out and Peg could meet them there) to the bird sanctuary in Arizona. If Franklin can raise a bird as smart as Peggy, the two of them can teach birds everywhere how to reach their full potential.
Oh, and did I mention that the Judge Lady at the competition, with the cool beehive-hairstyle, thought that Franklin is just the most amazing man she’s ever met?! And they fall in love! And Peggy officiates the wedding!
That last part is a stretch — a bird could never officiate a wedding. Unless it’s a parrot, I guess. Which Peggy is not. But then again I didn’t have my glasses on that night. So maybe she was.
Gosh, I really wish I knew my birds. Then maybe I wouldn’t be so worried about how the hell this wedding is going to pan out.
Because what if — you know what? No. The wedding is going to be great. Maybe a bit too big (Franklin’s whole bowling team was in attendance), and they really should’ve chosen fish over chicken — for Peggy’s sake! — but great, nonetheless.
I had a great sleep that night. Maybe it was Franklin and Peggy’s happy ending, or maybe it was the power of the Harvest Moon. I don’t know much about astronomy, but I do know that I’ve always loved that song. If love is like the stuff Neil Young sings about, then all the pain Dorothy caused Franklin will be worth it a thousand times over. He’s got the Judge Lady. And his bird.
Maybe I’ll buy a bird one day. But probably not. Seems like a competitive market.
