And then I wrote...

by Dick Schilling, "Editor Emeritus"

... that I am afraid my reaction to the death of Muhammad Ali was not appropriate. When I first heard the news, I thought something like, here we go again. It will be a week of all-day coverage by the national media, with 90% of commentators eulogizing him and 10% making critical comments.

My own personal opinion is that Ali, like so many of us, had to be sifted by life until some of the raw edges were smoothed off a bit. I did not appreciate his affection for the Nation of Islam displayed by his name change from Clay after his first boxing ring achievements. He later became a Sunni Muslim. I did not appreciate his dodging the draft around the time of the war in Vietnam, probably influenced by my own position as a member of a draft board. And I did not appreciate his apparently inflated ego, with his “greatest” remark and his infatuation with his own “beauty,” although there are those who claim that was only show business. That’s a tactic more familiar now with modern politicians.

But after his ring career, and in particular after the diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease three decades ago, Ali seemed to become a kinder, gentler person, and did some very fine things on behalf of efforts to fight that disease, and on behalf of children.

All in all, probably a plus.

After writing this column for over half a century, I never cease to be amazed by learning who in the world, from where in the world, might be reading my words.
But I never thought about birds!

A few days after a recent column about birds waking me early in the morning, I was mowing the lawn, and was attacked by kamikaze wrens! No fewer than three times a bird flew right at me on the riding mower, only to veer off at the last minute. Once, when I made a turn, the wren did not correct in time and crashed into the weedy border of what was once a flower bed. It noisily extricated itself.

Wrens are mouthy.

A neighbor erected a bird house on a fence post between our properties many years ago, and I noticed on a lawn mowing trip some twigs and sticks being thrown out. As I neared, an irate wren flew out. They have nested in my hedge and in the vine attached to the garage in previous years.

In my early teens, I found a pattern for a wren’s nest, describing how to build it so other birds (sparrows) could not use it. I attached it to the chicken house, near the plum grove, and they found it year after year. It was built so I could clear it out each late fall and make it ready for new renters.

One fall, when I opened it, I discovered the renters that year were wasps, and while it was cool enough that they were moving slowly, I lost no time in vacating the area because they were not happy. Did they get there first in the spring and were they able to keep the wrens away?