Driving down to the road into Pearson's Mill, there was a turkey vulture soaring along at eye level, moving downstream towards Red Bridge. There is a steep bluff between the access road, about 30 feet, and the bird was close, and startlingly real.

Vultures are have turned soaring and gliding into art, especially in light of the low altitudes they work. They make it look so very easy that one forgets nobody else, anywhere, can do it.

They are unfairly maligned as scavengers. Remember, legend has it Ben Franklin preferred the wild turkey over the bald eagle as our national symbol because the eagle is a scavenger. (As was Franklin, in his premier field of expertise, lust.) In truth, all carnivores are scavengers, choosing the low-hanging fruit.

Disabuse yourself of any notion humans are exempt from this link in the food chain. It's a matter of hunger. In New Orleans I saw a woman eating raw oysters from a dumpster, sawdust from the bar floor and all. I'm sure war zones see worse, but I never will.

Vultures perform a critical role in beautification. For proof, let me know the next time your county highway folk pick up anything smaller than a deer.

That was it for raptors, and there were no smaller birds about, but just south of Red Bridge there was a handful of squirrels.

At the intersection with the Old Trail (the Slocum name is on hiatus), there were two more in a tail-chase, which I assume is squirrel foreplay. Chasing tail is a timeless human male pursuit (pun intended, and necessary), which leaves little other room for explanation.

I admit to being fond of lists. They are fun, and it's easy to assess validity based on where your favorite is ranked. For instance, Rolling Stone ranked the 500(!) greatest songs. "Gimme Shelter", the absolutely best rock song ever, was listed at #38, while the lugubrious, meaningless dirge "Hey Jude", at least 8 minutes too long, came in at #8. How totally fucking absurd.

With that in mind, here is my list for some wonderful summer reading. All these books are as good as literature gets, totally without pretense (if you like Noman Mailer, John Updike, John Barth, or other such overinflated egos, log off now), and all-around excellent work.

1.) "Special Topics in Calamity Physics" - Marisha Peshel.

This book literally changed my life. I had little interest in women's lit, until this, easily the best book of the the decade. Too good for words.

2.) "The Monsters of Templeton" - Lauren Groff.

Multi layered, and you can enjoy the ones you want. Lauren grew up in Cooperstown, NY, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame, where you won't find the consummate asshole Pete Rose. "Temple" is James Fennimore Cooper, and Lauren makes a marvelous case for his skills being largely hack.

3.) Anything by Jenny Siler. These are tight, taut, seamless page-turners, all suspense. You can't do better.

4.) "PopCo" - Scarlett Thomas.

Superbly intelligent, a most entertaining story, masterfully told, by the best writer no one has ever heard of. If you are adventuresome, start with "The End of Mister Y".

5.) Anything by Tim Dorsey. Largely ignored as a master of fiction, and so much funnier than Carl Hiaasen, who's pretty damn good. His feature, Serge Storms, is the most lovable psychopath ever.

6.) "Incredible Edible Birds" - Lauren Groff.

If you only read one more collection of short stories ever, this is the one.

7.) "Johnny Got His Gun" - Dalton Trumbo.

W Bush would have become a pacifist upon reading this book. If the dumb sonofabitch could read. Not a diatribe or polemic, the story is so strong that the message makes you cry.

Some choice nonfiction:

1.) "The Canon" - Natalie Angier

Should you be a scientist, this book catches you up on other fields. If not, here is an overview, very accessible, and up-to-date.

2.) "Dominion" - Matthew Scully.

Never preachy, presented in orderly fashion, a rationale why you should never be responsible for an animal's death, even in the tiniest role.

3.) "Genome" - Matt Ridley.

Easy to read and follow explication of the primary function of each of the 23 chromosomes in every human. This book will wipe away all your fears of genetics and heredity.

4.) "The Extiction Club" - Robert Twigger.

Know this: there is at least one group of shitstains out there whose ultimate accolades go to the member who kills the last of a species. Of course they help the process along by killing Dall sheep, mountain goats, Mexican gray wolves, Florida panthers, and the like. Read this book and join me in declaring open season on club members.

There you are. You can't go wrong with any, or all. Should you read any of these, let me know what you think, by e-mail at dougalley@att.net, on Facebook, or as "Anonymous" - about the only way to respond on this blog I can figure. All are available on Amazon, if your library can't help you.

Don't delay! Start today!

Frustaration

Spent several hours putting together an extensive post today, mostly about Tecumseh, one of the truly great leaders and statesmen this land has produced.
If you still want to read about him, let me know.
Saw a raptor in silhouette this week which could only have been a Prairie Falcon. Okay, it should not be here, and my first rule of ID is if it's not supposed to be here, it probably isn't. But there is nothing else that size and shape on the continent.
On 513, Miami CR 1050E, just south of the Wabash Co. line, there was a beautiful little kestrel.
A quarter-mile further, a red tail sat on the upper crossarm of a fifty foot power pole.
How people can fly by these magnificent hunters beats the shit out of me.
If hungry enough, the American Kestrel will take birds much larger than itself. And a red tail is hell on cottontails, which outweigh it on average a half-pound, or 20% it's body weight, for perspective.
Slow down and check them out, They are here, in the largest populations of your lifetime.
They are beautiful.
They are majestic.
They are awesome.

Made several stops to the west and south Wednesday, and after a very unsatisfying visit at Krystal's grave, took a turn back east and got that all-too familiar stutter.

A quick reckoning put the nearest fuel about 11 miles, about a half-gallon, away.

I started driving about 1 mph and looking for farm fuel tanks, and saw some on a farm about two miles along. I parked the truck about 200 yards past, at the crest of a rise, just in case.

A very nice young Mennonite lady (past-the-calf skirt, long stockings, named Miller - what else you need?) accepted my $5 for a couple of gallons of gas and proceeded to pump in about 10. Would not take more money, even when I pinned her to the ground and stuck the business end of my Glock .40 S&W in her mouth.

Okay, I never even thought of that until my bitty-brain made fun while I searched out each letter on the keypad.

People are so wonderful...

That same afternoon I went to Sweetser to pay the cable bill for stuff I'm not watching. The gas prices had gone up nearly 20 cents that morning (why I didn't fill up, why I ran out) but hadn't been raised there, so I decided to top off the gift from the farm girl.

The first pump I couldn't make work, so I made a "U" and found one I could operate.

A lady in a van dicked around and made the machine I abandoned work. I was talking with her, and, if you have ever had a conversation with me, you know when I open my mouth my brain shuts down.

I drove back towards Converse, to the cemetery so the dogs could walk me. As soon as I got out I smelled gas, and saw that I had left the gascap at the station (not at the nice girl's farm. I remember the clicks as I sealed it for vacuum).

There are two big pines along the western (older) road through the middle of the cemetery, about two town blocks (15 per mile) apart. I park under the westernmost, and as we started east one of "my" red tails landed high on a bare branch in the other. He makes regular appearances in these posts, and would be on retainer, if there was any money around.

So I skirted his perch to the south, and even as it was twice as far as my approach brought me from the west, he took wing, as I pushed pebbles with my nose thinking about my gascap. I eventually picked him up in the sky southwest, a favored cruising haunt.

About 20 minutes later, I went back to the store and my gascap was gone.

*Warning: skip this part, as it is merely a self-serving rant.*

What kind of snivelling, lame-dick inbred piece of carp shit steals a fucking 20-year-old gas cap? The odds that someone came along to shit-hole Sweetser, Indiana, in those twenty minutes who actually needed that gascap are about the same as the pope fathering an out-of-wedlock child (you know the sanctimonious self-righteous hypocrite bastard would see to an abortion).

Shit's sake, the gascap had no value whatever. Some fuckstain who wipes his ass with his fingers then licks them clean took it for the same reason a mouse in a trap gets an erection.

So I wisely saved $1.60 by filling up in Sweetser, where the deranged don't cower in the light of day, then spent $9 at Advance Auto Parts, the World's Greatest Auto Parts Store (they don't got it you don't need it) to replace an essential item for my vehicle only.

This guy is too fucking stupid to cook meth, so I hope he gets a jones and tries.

For a single guy, I am simply overawed by my beautiful and wonderful nieces. Cara, one of my three best-ever friends, Ariel, so beautiful, smart, and witty, Olivia, a gorgeous super-athlete, Maddy, one of the very neatest people ever, beautiful and clever and affectionate, and Britt, my favorite nephew's wife: I'm only scratching at the surface of a lovely, interesting, and beautiful person.

Britt has a passenger, and I promised to put martinis out of their discomfort for her, in the process saving some gin from the insults of ice, condiments, and that horrid grenadine. As of yet, the juniper berries have not reached an optimum temperature for true appreciation, but I will keep my promise. In fact, I crave keeping this promise.

Saw my first Kildeer today. Kildeer are a Darwinian success. Shorebirds, they have adapted to a mid western terrain without shore and lay eggs in gravel, mostly along lightly travelled roads.

One of Darwin's rules was that to be successful, animals would adapt to changing environmental conditions. Because I'm already pissed off, let's revisit the "controversy" about the scientific term "theory".

Know that every time you add 2 + 2 you get 4. That does not mean that 2 + 2 = 4 every time.

For example, if you have 2 pies, and divide each into 6 slices, then 2 + 2 = 12.

Not a stellar exposition, but the truth should be apparent.

There are a distressing number of individuals so protective of an absolutely ludicrous belief system, one that is not just refutable on the most basic tenets but makes the most absurd and outlandish claims, who point to words like "theory" and say it's a theory, not a proven fact.

But their facts are an "Immaculate Conception", a virgin giving birth, walking on water, blind sighted, people risen from the dead, feeding 8,000 people with 3 fish and 5 loves of bread (not sliced - that came much later), rising from the dead, ascending bodily into heaven (this is a reprise, but if he was traveling at or above the speed of light, he'd be energy, not bodily in heaven. And if, as he must, he's traveling at less than the speed of light, Hubble would have picked him up. He'd still be in our galaxy.

And the Virgin Mary was assumed bodily into heaven.

Well, good for her. But what about James, identified in two gospels as Jesus' brother. Where does this leave that bastard? If the virgin is a virgin, he's out as a sibling, unless the same "Angel of the Lord" juiced up some local talent, then he and Jesus would be halfsies.

Okay this stuff is migraine-level stupefying. A belief system that throws in a fact every 1000 or so words would help some, but this is just so much bullshit my fact-checker is anorexic.

Doing my biweekly channel surf this morning (okay, maybe not that often) and VH1 had the New York Dolls doing some dirge. Listened to about 3 couplets, finished the last line with them, some little rhyme from every third album by lower Second Tier groups since 1964. Moved on up the dial and CMT had Kieth Urban tearing it up in concert. Just great! Where was I when CW guys started rockin' like they invented it? Wow!

About 5PM I remembered the BB tourney started today. These four days have the best ball, with 48 games and about 30 equally matched teams playing for the 4 to 6 slots the powers leave for the other 50+ teams invited to the tourney.

That "invited" is routinely ignored by those who call this a college basketball championship. It is an Invitational, and there are roughly 20 teams invited to the "other" tourney as good as those 30 above. The idea the NIT is for #66 is absurd. Those 20 teams have a better chance of making the NCAA "Sweet Sixteen" than about two dozen "automatic" bids for the NCAA version.

But when I remembered it, I switched it on, and realized about four minutes later I didn't give a shit. Butler leaves me feeling as frustrated as some knight errant must have felt after pitching serious woo for several hours and finding a chastity belt.

In a Harris Poll around "Super" Bowl time people who identified themselves as sports fans ranked their favorite sports as NFL, MLB, and NCAA Football.

My own interpretations of these data are that MLB is not dying and that college football does not need a playoff system. Your interpretations may differ, but you'll need more data if they are to be entertained in this forum.

There are redwinged blackbirds and robins about in abundance. And a friend told me he saw a Baltimore Oriole today. And I have seen several turkey vultures, soaring masters, gliding across the skies at Mississinewa Reservoir the past several days.

Definition: for me, "several" means more than five but less than fifty.

Several years ago I was doing some light-duty birdwatching with a wildlife biologist at the dog tick capital of east central Indiana, Summit Lake Reservoir in Henry County.

Andy said that biologists had taped over the red-white-yellow marking on some male redwinged blackbirds, and they were not selected as mates. Surely a monumental scientific endeavor, but illustrative of the importance of conformity among species.

And the ticks: I picked about 15 off me after two or so hours in the fields, and found another in my moustache the next evening.

Nice place. Be prepared.

Lots of red tails, kestrels, and sharp-shinned & Cooper's hawks about. What else could a person want?

If you are not this easily appeased, and need truly heady stuff, I can put you on some bald eagles, guaranteed. Ask.

Ben Franklin was a homespun genius, turning himself into a lightning rod and shit.

He would have been a houseboy for Archimedes, DaVinci, Galileo, or Newton, but he was pretty hot stuff.

However, he is credited with two remarkably bad ideas.

While probably not true, possibly with tongue in cheek, he championed the Wild Turkey over the Bald Eagle as America's National Symbol. (Okay, this is so incredibly poor you really, really should skip it, but maybe he was all for Wild Turkey Bourbon as our national libation.) This would have fucked up hundreds of millions of Thanksgiving dinners through the years. Even I can bake a turkey, but wouldn't dare try making a decent cheeseburger for guests.

Franklin is also credited with DST, Daylight Savings Time, an abomination unto the eyes of the lord.

I am somewhat confused about this, but don't care enough to research it.

On November 18, 1883, US and Canadian railroads adopted Standard Time, and while trains were notorious for not running "on time" at least you didn't ride from St. Louis to Louisville and arrive two hours before you left.

The US Congress thought this a thoroughly brilliant and useful idea and swiftly enacted it into law. On March 19, 1918, the Standard Time Act was enacted. This act included provisions for DST.

Ben Franklin died in 1790.

Interested? Google awaits!

In case anyone besides my best friend Joe played the game regards the best work of the greatest rock and roll band ever, here is a clarification: I said "(It's) The Singer Not the Song" was one of the best rock lyrics poems.

The best is:

In the chilly hours and minutes of uncertainty
I want to be in the warm hold of your loving mind.
To feel you all around me and to take your hand, along the sand,
Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind.

When sundown pales the sky I want to hide a while, behind your smile
And everywhere I'd look your eyes I'd find
To love you now would be the sweetest thing, t'would make me sing
Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind

When rain has hung the leaves with tears, I want you here, to kill my fears
And help me to put all my blues behind
For standin' in your heart is where I want to be, and I long to be
Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind.

Catch the Wind, Donovan (Leitch)

Red tails look magnificent perched on a low wire , when you are driving slow enough to check them out. I've mentioned several times a buteo that appears to patrol the area including the Converse Cemetery, Mier, and, possibly that little ponded area up by Richland Chapel. This beautiful boy was along SR 18 just east of Converse, about a 1/4 mile from the cemetery.
The area as described sounds large, but a soaring red tail can patrol it in less time than you can drive it; his vision is that much better than yours.
I'm a little surprised. This hawk is almost a star, perching in totally vulnerable places, road signs, road sides, low wires on the highways, several spots on two state roads.
There is an overabundance of armed dumbasses about.
My belief is you eat what you kill, and I doubt a 30 -40 pound dog (coyote - the DNA is an up-and-down match) shows up as a roast on many tables tomorrow.

None of the coyotes I see on tailgates are killed on the killer's property, so, WTF? You're not eating the dog, he's not bothering your stuff. And you kill him?

That is just wrong.

Thus it surprises me none of these assholes have blown my neighborhood red tail to smithereens, two or so pounds reduced to feathers and ruptured bones.

And I think I saw a robin today, support and credence for the red-winged blackbird of a couple days ago.
I guess I'm not the robin fan I should be. Maybe because they are noted singers, protected songbirds, but they seem to sing maybe eighteen notes a year, in total self interest. I surely believe they could and should share such a lovely talent a bit more.
One should keep a shine on the gifts the Lord gives, and that's a dusky luster on the robin's songs.

Playing with a stick and my puppy in the pine woods this afternoon, I saw a broad-tipped arrow stuck in a branch, too high to reach. I have no idea why that arrow had been let fly that high. Kind of scary. Not an accident, it dug in pretty good. I'll get it tomorrow.

Okay, maybe. I was gonna mark it, but I walked out-and-back, and didn't see it.

What a drag it is getting old.

In response to the reader request that poured in, my annual quota, here is a new rock song challenge, based on the early works of the Greatest Rock Band Ever, the Rolling Stones.
The Rolling Stones, who made much of the very best rock music in the '60's and '70's, have continued into the 21st Century with vapid, meaningless albums.
But I can't have it both ways. I constantly bitch about this year's versions of Journey and Kansas, touring from January 1 through December 31, no new songs for over 30 years.
I'm like a stinky old guy, and these guys are older than me, mechanically picking out and singing 30, 40-year-old songs, irrelevant for most of those years.
The conundrum is the Stones have kept making records, some of which attempt to evince a new social conscious, hard to adopt when the band you worshipped was arrested for public pissing, banned from entire nations for attempting to enter the country with that noted killer, marijuana. Okay, serious, you are an international star sells millions of records and sells out as big a venue you can book. And of the hundreds of groupies, roadies, and hangers-on, you can't double-bag an ounce and find someone to stuff it up their ass for customs? For these Rock Gods, somebody would have brought in Charlie Watts' drum kit stuffed in very orifice.
Okay, Brian Jones' junk might have required a cow, but he was an over the top boozer (think Kieth Moon, The Who's brilliant, doomed drummer) and alcohol killed more early rockers - Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Moon and Jones, than all the drugs Kieth Richards has consumed and subsumed in 50 years.
All these questions have been Google fact-checked, but using Google for answers is just plain wrong. And you know who you are.
And if you don't know the early Stones, early '60's & '70's, or don't care, save yourself some time and check your e-mail. Or page down to the para begins, "For several years now, bird watchers have argued..."

Part I
First lines of songs.
(All songs appearing in this quiz will carry a *, **, or *** rating, good, excellent, or outstanding.)
1.) "Everywhere I hear the sound of marching charging feet, boy" ***
2.) "I live in an apartment on the 99th floor of my block" ***
3.) "I was born in a crossfire hurricane" **** (not a typo)
4.) "If I could stick my pen in my heart, spill it all over the stage" ***
5.) "Well baby used to stay out, all night long
She made me cry, she done me wrong" ***
6.) "Well when you're sitting there in your silk upholstered chair
Talking to some rich folk that you know" ****
7.) "No good, can't speak wound up, no sleep
Sky diver inside her, skip rope, stunt flyer" ***
8.) "What a drag it is getting old" ***
9.) "You're the kind of person you met at certain dismal dull affairs" ***
10.) And, from the absolute greatest, no contest, rock song ever, *** *** *** ***
"Oh, see the storm is threatening my very life today"

Part II
Lines from songs.
11.) " Now she gets her kicks in Stepney
Not in Knightsbridge anymore" ***
12.) "Faith has been broken, tears have been cried
Let's do some livin' after we've died" ***
13.) "It's not the way you give in willingly
Others do it without thrilling me" *****
This is one of the great poems/songs ever and if you think you fully appreciate it 40 years later, good for you. The most insightful message in rock music, period.

14.) "Cause all you women is low down gamblers, cheatin' but I don't know how" ***
15.) "I can see that you're fifteen years old
No I don't want your ID" ***
16.) "I'm a cold Italian pizza
I could use a lemon squeezer
Would you do?" ***
17.) "Sweet cousin cocaine lay your cool cool hand on my head" ***
18.) "Got to scrape the shit right off your shoes" ***
19.) "And try as you may
You just don't feel good
You don't feel all right" ***
20.) And finally, once again, from the absolutely greatest rock song ever
"Burns like a red coal carpet" ***** *****
Take credit only if you know the next six words.
Extra credit: many of the early Stones song were written by Nanker/Phelge. Who are those guys? And what movie is that line from?
Goddammit, Joe, this took hours. You better like it!

For several years now, bird watchers have argued that the true harbingers of spring are not robins, but red-winged blackbirds. And I saw one yesterday, the first since October. It's been pleasant the last several days. Garrison Keillor said March isn't spring. God made March so people who don't drink will know what a hangover is.
There were two kestrels together on a wire, facing in opposite directions, doing what can only be described as necking.
Tis the season...

Different seat for a Windshield Hawker - shotgun. Was being chaperoned to Muncie for a late afternoon doctor's appointment, riding on SR 22 (to locals; most everyone else calls it [US] 35) between SR's 13 & 9, when the driver says "Look at that big hawk" on the top of a south power pole. I was in the openings of "Probably a red tail" when we both said, a sexagenarian chorus, "It's an owl!"

And it was, a fine big beautiful Great Horned Owl, at 2:15 in the afternoon, highly visible, in a moderate traffic area.

Okay, that doesn't happen.

Except he was still there, still facing north, when we passed three hours later. My friend said the same scenario played out for he and his wife a couple weeks ago.

Long, strange winter.

Strange days.

(Quiz for those into Music Appreciation: "Strange Days have found us / Strange Days have tracked us down". There's the title: band?)

My puppy went today to donate his tools to the campaign against canine overpopulation.

When I picked him up early this afternoon, he was making cuddly with the vet, who did the heinous deed, and ignored me, the obvious perpetrator of this sacrilege.

Eight hours later, and I'm still shunned.

Think I'll wear a cup to bed.

There was a bright glow in the eastern morning sky, and there were clusters of born-agains on their knees preparing for rapture, and much fewer knots of my fellow heathens, also on their knees, waiting to anoint the new god in the sky.

(MA challenge #2: "Little Darlin', it's been a long cold lonely winter / Little Darlin', it feels like years since it's been here".)

One morning a few years ago I was walking the dogs, well pre-dawn, at the fairgrounds, and the eastern sky was dominated by a light must have been the Star of David the Magi followed to Bethlehem. Later Bob and Tom made some ado about what was comet Hale-Bop (really, I think) and how it might not be the end of the world.

Well, for some it was.

Featured was a group, the Raelians, pictured in colorless, shapeless, hooded robes and wearing Converse Chuck Taylors, who had been waiting since 1973 for this vehicle to transport them to heaven.

About two dozen prepared for the ride by drinking "Jim Jones Kool-Aid" (all apologies to Kool-Aid, because this is now the popularized term for the arsenic-dosed powdered fruit drink at Jonestown, the same shit you drank at summer camp and called "bug juice".)

A few years later the sect's survivors were legitimized with a several-page nude layout in Playboy, the surest way to gain acceptability both in the eyes of the Lord and those of other new-age reborns for your whacked-out fucking belief system.

Bringing my little Sun back home from his ordeal (even now he is printing up "Give 'em back, asshole" signs) early this afternoon I stopped to visit Krystil's grave. Time heals all wounds, but all time has done is convince me someone made it impossible for her to go into her home once more for the horrors and degradation that awaited her, and she walked into a speeding semi instead.

Maybe it's better for her now, but I feel more and more guilty for not figuring it all out sooner and attending to her despair.

Her religion and familial structure failed this beautiful, sweet, wonderful little girl, who never thought or said anything hurtful or even negative in her life. As per the bible, the man rules the household, and by canon accepts no challenge to his authority. The family is isolated, home schooled, with minimal contact with the world, or even the neighbors.

Where can a 12, 13, 14 year-old girl turn, when her home is a house of horror?

To her mother? Her mother knew, but in this disgusting patriarchal religion and way of life, she must choose, and she chose faith, in a god that allowed the world's sweetest child to be tortured to death.

An irony: Christian religions consider suicides as damned, because they have completely abandoned the healing power of god. Krystil had no time to "repent" as death came at 60 mph.

The responsible person, a subhuman, has the rest of his life to "repent", and go to "heaven", as god forgives, and vengeance is his, so poor little Krystil is off to hell.

Fuck this shit. As soon as I'm absolutely certain (wait, that's been months now) I need to settle this up, maybe grab the most innocent, sweet little girl out of the clutches of some stupid devil.

Okay, just a bit more to slake my rage and impotence: Miami County calls for an autopsy in cases of accidental death. Krystil's death was determined "accidental", but the County Prosecutor did not order one, even after it was requested (guess who), in respect of the wishes of, and respect for, the parents' religious beliefs.

So a rapist and murderer isn't even questioned?