(Originally posted on the website Heron Flight)

I had to get outside for a walk in the middle of the day today. The weather was dreary and damp. But I had to get out of this cube and forget about the pressures of the day, at least for 15 minutes. I’ve been working on The Project from Hell. I think a few of the people involved came straight from hell. At this point in the project, they can go straight back for all I care! So, you see, this midday stroll was a necessity. A necessity for me from the point of my mental wellbeing. A necessity for the Hell People from the point of their physical safety. I grabbed my iPod, shoved the earphones in my ears (because that’s where they go), and walked out the door. I chose “shuffle” on the iPod and the random songs began to play.

Two minutes later I rounded the back corner of the building and followed the driveway along the edge of the woods. I looked up and there, to my amazement, was a bald eagle flying just twenty yards ahead of me! It was gorgeous! Beautiful white head and tail in sharp contrast to its black body and wings. It gracefully tilted through the branches of the trees, lowered toward the small river behind the office, and sailed its way downstream and out of my view. I was nearly ecstatic! A minute later, another employee who I never saw before came walking from the opposite direction. “Did you see that eagle?” I asked. “It was beautiful! Big white head and tail! Amazing!” He replied that he didn’t see it and gave me the skeptical eye. Well, he can just join the Hell People on their return trip. I saw an eagle and it was real. Let him think I’m kookie.

Speaking of kookie, here’s where my little story gets kookie, for real. I kid you not when I inform you that within two minutes of seeing that great big beautiful bird, the song “Fly Like an Eagle” by Steve Miller came on my iPod. I kid you not. Don’t give me the skeptical eye. I was almost like, “Whoa, dude! That’s freaky!” But since I was alone with no one to call “Dude,” I didn’t. I just continued walking and thinking, “I wish I could fly like an eagle ‘til I’m free! Damn! That’s what I need! I should just soar right out of this stink-hole!”

Well, let me kid you not again and get more kookie on your skeptical ass. Three songs later, on the opposite side of the office building, a song by The Guess Who came on the iPod. (No, I didn’t mean for you to “guess who”. That’s the name of the band, silly!) It was an old song, as all Guess Who songs are old, called “Guns, Guns, Guns”. Suddenly, I heard the lines, “Eagles are gone, and no more caribou; Godspeed, Mother Nature; I never really wanted to say good-bye.”

Then I was almost like, “Whoa, dude! It’s a sign! God is speaking to you! You have to do something!”

And I was like, “Like what? Free Willy?”

“Nah, dude! You have to save the eagles!”

“Well, what about the caribou?”

“Nah, they can’t fly…”

Reluctantly though, I had to go back into the building. There was no time for saving the eagles. I had a meeting to attend. Then another one after that. Then another one at 7:00 tonight.

Now, you may wonder, “What was an eagle doing in New Jersey? Isn’t that place full of turnpikes, chemical factories, and places with names like Bayonne?”

Yes, but not completely. Much of New Jersey is still quite scenic. But that is changing. Just like the rest of the world, New Jersey’s ecology is being eroded and polluted. The Guess Who may have been worried about humans killing eagles with guns back in the day. Today, after decade upon decade of industrialization, there are worse threats against the lives of eagles, caribou, and humans. Our country’s current Commander and Thief and his kookie cronies have done much to reverse environmental laws and put the ecology of both our country and the entire world at greater risk. They close their eyes to the evidence of a polluted environment, plug their ears to the whimpers of dying animals and sick children, and wave away the risk of global warming with their calloused greedy hands. (Speaking of global warming, I also saw red-breasted robins on my walk. These are birds that show up closer to spring. They seem to be here rather early this year.) “Let us eat, drink and burn oil, for tomorrow we die,” they sing. Yes, tomorrow we die. Unless, someone steps up and saves us all. Maybe guns aren’t the problem anymore. Maybe they are a solution. After all, we can’t wait for the caribou to save us.

(I can hear the Patriot Act alarms going off now. “He said guns on his website! You can’t say ‘guns’ on a website!”)

Anyway… eagles migrate through New Jersey. I kid you not.

Wow! Free time is over already. I have another meeting to catch. Bye.