My Christmas Story

Solstice! Tomorrow will be one second longer than today! Well, ya' gotta' start somewhere. Solstice! I feel so Pagan-like today!
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My Christmas story. On Christmas eve morning in 1989, I went out to fill the bird feeders as usual; there was several inches of snow on the ground and it was very cold and flurrying. As I approached the big feeder, I noticed there was something yellow showing in the snow; it was one of the many pine siskins that usually dined on thistle seed. I figured the little fellow was dead and I picked it up and was going to drop it in a nearby hollow stump, but to my surprise it opened its eyes for a moment. I placed the bird in my coat pocket, finished filling the feeders, and went inside the trailer where we lived. I took the siskin out of my pocket, and it of course pooped in my hand; cold poop. I didn't have any idea that it would recover, but I covered it and placed it near a heat vent and in a little while it was sitting upright. Carolyn got some warm water and I was able to get some into his beak, then we wrapped him in warm towels. After awhile, he was up and moving about; so much so he began following me everywhere I went; I think he had bonded with me. We fed him some warm bread and a few thistle seeds, put him in a small box where I had stuck a small limb for him to perch on, and he went to sleep. When he awoke, he was doing very well, but he either could not or would not fly. Instead, he still followed me all over the house, fluttering his little wings as he ran behind me. It was just me; he would not follow Carolyn.

Later that afternoon, Carolyn and I went to The Cottage Christmas party, but I put a towel over Siskin's box before we left so he would not get into trouble while we were gone. By the time the shindig was over at five o'clock, the temperature had fallen even more and a mean west wind was whipping things around. We left the Cottage and drove to her mom's house so we could take her to my mom's house to open Christmas gifts. On the way, we noticed some flashing red lights near downtown Johnson City, but paid them little attention. When we got to my mom's place, it was all over the news: the John Sevier Center was afire. At one time, it had been the city's premier hotel, but was now retirement apartments for old and disabled people.

Later when Carolyn and I returned home, I looked into the bird-box and Siskin was asleep on his perch with his head under his wing. We watched news coverage of the fire and eventually found that several people had died from smoke and heat.

Next morning when I uncovered Siskin, he un-tucked his head from beneath his wing, chirped once and fell over dead.

The 16 people dying in the fire bothered me a-plenty, but little Siskin's death was the most difficult to deal with. I took him to the hollow stump and buried him deep inside where no other critters could get to him. All through the remaining winter and into spring, I found several more dead siskins on our lot, and our thistle feeders were almost barren of them on up to 1994 when we moved from there. I never found out if it was over population or disease which reduced the numbers so drastically. We do not have any pine trees where we live now so there are few around, but each time I see one, I think of my day with little Siskin.
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