"Relax And Move On" Part 2

Back at the cars, Tom was subdued. Most of the people left early but we stayed with him as did Degan’s parents, Fred and Suzanne.
“This is an industrial area. Was he really expecting us to see any good birds here?” Fred confided with me as he placed his scope in the leather case.
“I don’t know. When I read the newsletter it said, ‘Saticoy Ponds’, which sounds like a natural kinda place.”
“That’s what we thought too,” Suzanne said.
“This sucks, big time,” was Degan’s astute summation of the excursion.
Tom stretched his knee out in the cab of his pickup.
“See this, J-2, appreciate it,” Tom said pouring bottled water over his knee. “Ever step you take in this life means something. Don’t take nothin’ for granted.” Again my son offered his “you’re full of crap but I’m being polite” forced grin and nod.
“Well, we’re out of here. Thanks for having us, Tom,” I said offering my hand.
“Damn! Damn!” Tom pounded the cab.
Fred and Suzanne thanked Tom and my son exchanged email addresses and cell phone numbers with Degan.
“You guys want to drive down a little ways? Sometimes there’s water in the back ponds and a lot of the sea bids collect there,” Tom said with boyish enthusiasm and the first tenderness I had seen in his eyes.
“Nah. I think we’re good. I got a few errands to run today,” I replied as affably as possible.
“We’re gonna have to pass too, Tom. Again, thank you,” Suzanne said resolutely.
Tom was crestfallen.
“Please. It’s only…” he checked his cell phone, “not even 10:30.”
“Nah, we better, you know, head out,” I said, placing the lens caps on my binoculars.
“Please. Five minutes. That’s all I ask. Give me that,” Tom said imploringly, his eyes begging for mercy.
Fred and Suzanne looked at each other, slightly disturbed.
A sadistic side of me wanted to stick the knife in and beat it but I couldn’t do that to Tom. There was an earnestness to him that I found endearing. Maybe that’s what brought the others here today too. He was one of those great sufferers you run into a few times in your life who seem to have the world pitted against them but as you get to know them better, realize they make their world pitted against them. They won’t have it any other way.
“This guy’s a dumbass, let’s just go,” Jacob said, again loud enough for Tom to hear everything.
“Give him five minutes. It obviously means a lot to him.”
“But the guy’s an effin’ idiot.”
“He’s not an effin’ idiot and don’t curse.”
“Effin’ isn’t a curse word, dad.”
I looked at Fred and Suzanne and she was shaking her head at me. Fred’s eyes were more empathetic.
Finally, we gave in and agreed to let Tom lead us further back down the dirt road, not really sure what to expect but wishing we could get his over with and get on with our Saturdays.
As we rounded a bend, we came upon a lake dotted with sea birds. Sunlight sparkled resplendently on the surface. A flock of Canadian Geese soared overhead and glided into the brilliant water runway.
I looked over at Tom and the deep lines in his forehead were gone, the shadows under his eyes vanished, the grooves at his brow had smoothed away. His whole countenance softened and I thought I actually saw a tear glint in one eye.
“Damn, look at that, will you. This is where we shoulda gone in the first place.”
I glassed the pond and through the deep focus of my binoculars, and with the high contrast lighting and long focal length, saw, in heavenly detail, the rich varieties of birds, the whole image having an ethereal quality, almost as if I was gazing into another world. I thought of Buddha’s Pure Land which he describes as a wonderous place of clear waters, gentle breezes, and an amazing assortment of birds. I wanted to keep looking through my binoculars forever. It was a window directly into heaven. I saw Mallards, Egrets, Coots, Canadian Geese; the Bufflehead, Ring-neck, Canvas-back, and Green-winged teel ducks. I saw Widgeons, Pied-billed Grebes, Ring-billed Gulls, and the majestic Great Blue Heron. There were a series of tiny bird houses along the waterway which Tom explained were erected by a woman for migratory swallows to replace the tree homes that were cut down during construction of the water reclamation plant. As a result, myriads of swallows filled the air around these ponds, in the springtime.
Tom limped out along the channel using a hockey stick as a crutch. As we walked, I overheard Tom explain to Fred and Suzanne how his daughter was misdiagnosed with diabetes and suffered numerous health issues because of the medications she was given. There were tears in Tom’s eyes.
“American medicine is the worst in the world. You got a pharmaceutical lobby that pays off doctors and lawyers so every other commercial on TV is for a drug you don’t need,” Tom said, sweating under the effort of the crutch, the clouds burning off. “I bet at least half the people you know are on some kind of prescription medication.”
“Actually, no. Our friends and family are pretty health conscious. We’re into natural remedies,” said Suzanne.
“Good for you. You ain’t the norm,” said Tom. “You can cure diabetes with diet and exercise and taking the right herbal supplements.”
“You always been into natural remedies?” I asked.
“Heck no. I had my ‘chemical time’ but the Good Lord showed me the light at the end of the tunnel.”
We focused our birdwalk on the area around the central pond and found a plethora of specimens: Killdeer, Red-tailed Hawk, California Thrasher, Says Phoebe, Semipalmated Plover, Cattle Egret which Tom explained was introduced into North America by a small flock of the birds being trapped in a hurricane in Africa and carried across the Atlantic Ocean; Junco, Starling, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Mockingbird, Kestral, Savannah Sparrow, Turkey Vulture, American Pipit, Spotted Towee, Black Phoebe (Grassdipper), Peregrin Falcon.
“Peregrin was almost wiped out by DDT. It made the shells of their eggs too thin and the little ones couldn’t hatch. Once they started regulatin’ DDT, Peregrin’s makin’ a come back. Larry! Larry!” Tom started shouting and waving his arms, dropping the hockey stick in the dirt. I saw a large bird circling high overhead but couldn’t make out the markings. Finally I found him in my binoculars. I saw the distinctive white head and the broad, majestic wing span. I didn’t even know we had bald eagles in Southern California. Fred and Suzanne we delighted. Even Jacob and Degan were enthralled. Larry, the bald eagle, disappeared over the rolling hills toward Sulphur Mountain.
“That, ladies and gentlemen, just made this worth blowin’ my damn knee again,” Tom said, pumping his fist and throwing his hands up, celebrating. “YEAH! YEAY, BABY! GO LARRY!”
Tom high-fived each of us and slammed my son on the back again, almost taking a nose dive into the dirt as he did.
“How did you like that, youngblood?! Almost as good as the blond’s cell phone number.”
My son just nodded.
“Let’s wrap this thing. Chargers got a playoff game at one.”
Tom got on his cell phone and I deduced he was talking to his ex-wife or ex-girlfriend by all the yelling and cursing that commenced. We waited for a while for him to hang up so we could say our parting words but he didn’t. Fred and Suzanne looked at us with puzzled expressions and finally we hopped in the car and drove off.
“Hey dad, remind me never to go birdwatching with you again.”
“Hey, you met a friend. You learned something.”
“What did I learn today, dad?”
I had to think about that for a minute.
Relax and move on.