Feed the Birds!
With snow in the forecast, this is my annual reminder – for the sake of our feathered friends and in memory of my father.
First, the birds. Snow covers up the seeds, bugs, worms and other delicacies they eat.
So, Feed the Birds!
When you stock up on bread, milk, toilet paper, wine and brownie mix, or when you go to the hardware store for sleds and shovels, get bird seed. Or just crumble up bread, crackers and cookies.
When it stops snowing, toss out a feast. Be sure it’s in a place you can watch from indoors. You’ll be rewarded with the sight of flapping, flocking cardinals, bluebirds and…well, I’ve exhausted my knowledge of avian species. You get the point.
Now, for my Dad. And why I do this in his honor.
Jim was a printer. He worked for many years in the N&O composing room, back when newspapers used metal type. To close up empty spaces on pages, printers kept on hand little “fillers,” one- or two-paragraph news briefs or “house ads,” promoting subscriptions or want-ads.
An aside: Want-ads, or classified ads, used to fill page after page of the newspaper. They were a big profit center. They paid for big news staffs that got laid off when the Internet killed want-ads.
Whenever it snowed, my Dad would make up dozens of filler ads, of all sizes and shapes. All of them read: Feed the Birds!
He’d scatter the fillers throughout the paper. In the morning, you’d pick up the paper, which your dedicated delivery person had hauled to your house through the snow. You’d read through it. On almost every page, you’d be reminded: Feed the Birds!
Another aside: Jim was active in the printer’s union. He became president of the local chapter, and he negotiated union contracts with management. Later, the company made him foreman of the composing room, a management job. I always suspected that was so they wouldn’t have to negotiate with him anymore. Frank Daniels Jr. once told me, “Jim’s idea of negotiating was to talk to you until you agreed with him.” I told Frank, “Believe me, I know.”
My Dad died 15 years ago this month. Someone told me then that I would hear his voice in my head every day for the rest of my life. That happens if you’re lucky enough to have had a good father in your life.
On days like this, I hear Jim clearly:
“Feed the Birds!”
Feed the Birds!
With snow in the forecast, this is my annual reminder – for the sake of our feathered friends and in memory of my father.
First, the birds. Snow covers up the seeds, bugs, worms and other delicacies they eat.
So, Feed the Birds!
When you stock up on bread, milk, toilet paper, wine and brownie mix, or when you go to the hardware store for sleds and shovels, get bird seed. Or just crumble up bread, crackers and cookies.
When it stops snowing, toss out a feast. Be sure it’s in a place you can watch from indoors. You’ll be rewarded with the sight of flapping, flocking cardinals, bluebirds and…well, I’ve exhausted my knowledge of avian species. You get the point.
Now, for my Dad. And why I do this in his honor.
Jim was a printer. He worked for many years in the N&O composing room, back when newspapers used metal type. To close up empty spaces on pages, printers kept on hand little “fillers,” one- or two-paragraph news briefs or “house ads,” promoting subscriptions or want-ads.
An aside: Want-ads, or classified ads, used to fill page after page of the newspaper. They were a big profit center. They paid for big news staffs that got laid off when the Internet killed want-ads.
Whenever it snowed, my Dad would make up dozens of filler ads, of all sizes and shapes. All of them read: Feed the Birds!
He’d scatter the fillers throughout the paper. In the morning, you’d pick up the paper, which your dedicated delivery person had hauled to your house through the snow. You’d read through it. On almost every page, you’d be reminded: Feed the Birds!
Another aside: Jim was active in the printer’s union. He became president of the local chapter, and he negotiated union contracts with management. Later, the company made him foreman of the composing room, a management job. I always suspected that was so they wouldn’t have to negotiate with him anymore. Frank Daniels Jr. once told me, “Jim’s idea of negotiating was to talk to you until you agreed with him.” I told Frank, “Believe me, I know.”
My Dad died 15 years ago this month. Someone told me then that I would hear his voice in my head every day for the rest of my life. That happens if you’re lucky enough to have had a good father in your life.
On days like this, I hear Jim clearly:
“Feed the Birds!”