If you love something, set it free.........

PART ONE
This is a morality tale.
I think you will recall the old saying, “If you love something, set it free. If it was meant to be, it will come back to you.”
Well, one time in the not too distant past I did that very thing. There was something that I loved very much and wanted to have in my life every day. Twas a thing of beauty, it brought music to my ears, and a smile to my face when I heard it…..
IN the 1990’s I did, as a job, a paper route for the Daily Freeman, out of Kingston, NY. My route was approximately 103 miles every single night and took me in the vicinity of the Ashokan Reservoir, a beautiful area in an already beautiful place.
One night, as I drove along on one of the more desolate roads, I saw up ahead a small bright light at ground level. As I drove towards it, it rose mysteriously from the ground and just hung in the air a bit, moving back and forth a little before disappearing quickly from sight. A small UFO? I had no idea.
Each night for weeks the same thing happened. It would invariably always take off before I got close enough to see what it was, and it began to rankle me a bit that I might never know the truth.
The one night, weeks later, the light stayed on the ground. I slowly drove up to it but couldn’t tell what the small dark object on the side of the road, sitting in sand, was. I parked the car, lights bright on the object, and got out of the car, with my windbreaker in hand. I finally saw that it was a bird of some kind. I threw my jacket in the air and it landed smack dab on the bird, and I quickly pounced and scooped it up. It was then, from the confines of my windbreaker that I heard the sound of music, singing to me, “Whippoorwill whippoorwill whippoorwill” over and over. My favorite bird!!! I have loved the sounds of the whippoorwill my whole life, but had never seen one. Looking at my captive, I saw that it was a very homely looking bird, with a face that seemed to be a combination of a frog and an owl. But the song! So lovely!
My primitive brain went into action. I kidnapped the whippoorwill, and put it in the car, on the floor on the passenger side of the car, where I kept it covered with the coat. Every so often I was rewarded by the magical “Whippoorwill whippoorwill whippoorwill” frominside my coat. It was a glorious ride home, to be sure. I knew I had a chance to enjoy that sound for a long long time. I knew that when I got home I would let it go, and it would settle nearby in the woods and sing for me throughout the days and nights. What better soundtrack to one’s life?
Little did I know that the whippoorwill was singing for its life…..
I reached home. I brought my little bundle into my house and showed it to my wife, who basically told me to get it out of the house. I went to the door, stood on the front step, and opening the coat with a small flourish, freed the bird to the skies and trees of Kerhonkson. With a slight upward motion I tossed the bird skyward and it flew off into the trees.
I never heard from it again.
I thought about it, and slowly came to the realization that I had done a terribly selfish thing, for my own gratification. I had stolen a living thing, had taken it from its home and had brought it to mine, for my own pleasure. What a stupid, selfish act, and one that still shames me. The whippoorwill, once my favorite bird, deserves better than to have me hear its music. Or maybe it is better that I say, that I don’t DESERVE to hear it.
In the years since that incident I have heard many whippoorwills, maybe even that one, but a twinge of guilt always seems to stir within me…
PART TWO
As I walk across this big vast countryside I have seen all kinds of things, animals, weather, severe and beautiful, people, severe and beautiful, kind hearted women and rednecks with a chip on their shoulder, and many many miles of nothingness.
And I have found a new favorite bird. The red winged blackbird! Here in Arkansas, they seem to be as plentiful as the mosquitoes that are everywhere due to the flooding and storms.
They are fun. I was walking past a huge field full of tall hay, or pampas grass, with the tufts on the ends, like lion tails, and all of a sudden I became aware that there were birds flying up out of the grass, playing games with each other. One bird would dive down into the grass, and two more would pop out and fly up and in a circle and they would repeat this pattern all day long. A few feet down the field another set of redwings were doing the same thing. Every so often one bird would settle on a fence post long enough for me to enjoy looking at the beautiful red and yellow stripes on its wings. There must be a bird telegraph system somewhere that the whippoorwills used to alert the redwings to watch out for me because I could not get close enough to them to even get a decent photo. I was content to just watch them at play, though, and to hear their song, not as pretty as the whippoorwill,’s but a joy to hear none the less.
I regret the whippoorwill incident. Even though the bird did not die, I took it from the place that nature had put it, and for selfish reasons. I am sorry for that.
Now it is my hopes that by sharing this simple tale of these two birds, I have in some small way redeemed myself. Dem” boids” is fer ALL of us…..and Ill never forget it.