l i f e
the birdfeeder
contributions
christopher@30seconds.org
In his younger years he built all the furniture for my grandparents house. Now he's old and cheap and won't buy good wood. In fact he won't buy wood at all. Only works with found material, sometimes using pieces that wash up on the shore of the lake. Cheap.
So when he gave me the birdfeeder on a pole years ago I didn't expect it to last long, but I treasured it nonetheless because it was made with his hands and his thoughts. It was also made from unweathered cedar so I thought a few good rains and maybe, maybe, one winter and that's it...
The birdfeeder on a pole still exists today. It has a very sorted story.
It sat in my backyard for a little over two years. For both those seasons the cardinal came (but that is another story). Then my house was crushed.
The feeder was one of the few things that survived and soon it was in the courtyard of my new apartment building. However, it was a guy downstairs that took care of it, gave it a coat of paint, and always filled it with food. Then he moved away and my feeder left too. I thought he took it. About six months later I saw it in the backyard of the house next door. I left it there but I always kept an eye on it vowing one day to reclaim my feeder.
That was a year ago.
In the meantime the next door neighbor moved away and another neighbor behind him took the feeder. I could still see it in his garden. It needed new paint and the new owner put a roofing shingle on top and tied it closed to keep out the squirrels. Enough was enough.
Last night I went over the fence, pulled the pole out of the ground and carried the feeder home, leaving it outside my doorway until Saturday when I will have time to mount it in the courtyard again.
Tonight I'm sitting here getting ready to write something, anything, and my doorbell rings. No one ever rings the bell. I looked through the peephole and saw the hermit from across the hall. He is a great fellow, just keeps to himself. Like me I guess. We get along fine, although we rarely say much more than good morning or goodbye.
I open the door and he says to me, "Good evening Christopher, may I inquire as to how you managed to get hold of my birdfeeder?"
goodnight 3.5.98
