A New Mother

"We'll leave a light on for ya."
Tom Bodette, for Motel 6.

I've taken this mother robins picture 6 different times, but always ended up with a better picture. I was waiting for just the right one. Unless mom has a giant growth on her lower thigh...there is a little yellow beak sticking out. I took about 10 pictures, but mom never moved to show me if there were any other babies in the nest.

This is not my house, but for years we had a robins nest on our front porch light. We never tried to move her off, but it made it tough to even open the door to get your mail. Plus, you could'nt think about turning on the light...unless you wanted fried robin breast, or robin eggs over easy.

I used to get a regular robins nest on my mail route. Every spring she would show up. She was a dive-bomber. She would "greet" me at the house before hers...follow me to her house...accompany me to the next house...and then
would actually cross the street with me for 2 more houses. 5 houses crouched down, with mail in my left arm, with my right arm covering my head. I often wondered what people driving by were thinking.

On another subject...I used to play a lot of sports. Softball, basketball, football, tennis, golf. And, if I was'nt playing it...I was watching it on TV. Times change. When I went to bed last night, instead of watching game 2 of the NBA finals...I opted to tune into the Scripps National Spelling Bee. By the time I turned it on...the contest was down to 5 kids. It was both tense and (ha) spellbinding.

Ushally I am a prety good speler. Sumtimes I hav too look up a word. These yung stewdents wer amazeeng. The presure was entense with gudges gudging, and the tv cameras roling. "kan I hav that in a sentense?" "Kan I get a defanishun?" " Wher does the word oreiganate from?" I picked my faverute. The litle gurl with the bigest smile. She mesed up, and ended up the runerup. Sumtimes when yu see a compatition like this, yu no are nashun is in good hands.

Sumwhere Mr. Webster is siting up and shakeing his fenger at me.