Hopalong Cassidy Trail
Streator, Illinois
The requirement to stay at home while America contained Covid-19 and crushed the curve might have benefits that will come to light when we reemerge. A friend just complained to me that she has learned to talk the languages of her dog and her cats. She was shut up with all three for so long, the miracle just happened. She was worried. I wondered out loud “What would be the problem?”
Dr Doolittle learned to talk the languages of all the animals. Although the good doctor existed only in fiction, Dr. Jane Goodall lived among the apes after a childhood when she read Dr. Dolittle and his adventures among the world’s animals. We understand the apes and ourselves so much better after the work of Goodall.
St Francis of Assisi preached his sermons to the birds, who responded to him with gestures and complete attention. He continued the practice throughout his life once he knew the birds were listening to him. History doesn’t record if St Francis brought bird feed too. And then he wrote the Canticle of the Creatures, a beautiful poem that even an atheist can appreciate.
People still grow into the story of St. Francis, becoming like the saint. In the summer of 2005, I lived during the week in Benton Harbor, enjoying the lake and the land, beautiful with orchards and wilds. I stumbled upon Sarett Nature Center in the early evening. The ranger took an interest in me, and he shared with me the lay of the land. Next day, I confirmed every fact he told me with a flyover, thanks to Google maps.
He had worked with a team that had installed a boardwalk over the bottom lands of the Paw Paw River. The center wanted to protect the perfect growing conditions for Jack-In-The-Pulpit and rare wetland plants, Venus Flytraps included. I have looked for clues, but I don’t think this man was Chuck Nelson. It could have been Richard Schinkel. Schinkel played Santa Claus in Dowagiac, so imitating St. Francis wouldn’t be too much of a stretch.
At sundown, he stepped out before the picture window that looked out over bluff's edge and began spreading out birdseed along a split rail fence. Cardinals began to flock to him. I counted thirty before I lost count.
One perched on his right hand and pecked seed from the left palm. I stood in the nature center, not daring to step outside and scare off the flock. Looking through the picture window, I couldn’t believe my eyes.
My new cellphone didn’t have a camera. In fact, I want two outcomes from my writing today. I want a reader to confirm what I saw was true, an eyewitness who saw the flocking. Alternatively, I want a reader to tell me that Cardinals would never flock and feed in such numbers.
The turning inward that sheltering-in-place forces has been good for animals. I’m sure the bird count is higher outside my home near the Vermilion River, said to be the only river in the United States that flows north all the way to its confluence with a different river. The song of the mourning dove is heard in the land endlessly above the tap tap tatting of the woodpecker.
I almost expect to see a reemergence of the woodpecker called the Lord God Bird or see a flock of Passenger Pigeons fly overhead. I see plenty of Canadian Geese and remember we had declared the species extinct before an overlooked population in Wisconsin brought the downy bird of black and white feathers back.
It’s been a good time for odd birds. I have a friend I haven’t seen in a while, probably the friend most advanced in the sciences from my high school class, Byron High School, 1981. He can call himself Doctor and no one has to double check his credentials. He has the publications to prove it.
He was spit out of a major corporation in Mid-Michigan, probably for being right on an issue and not shutting up. Let’s just call him Prince Harold. I can’t wait for the pandemic to pass so I can have a beer with him on the shores of the Tittabawassee River.
Prince Harold could have a show shooting up truthy facts reported by the media on Covid-19. The couple who drank hydroxychloroquine in the south? That facty got blown up by the double barreled intelligence of our Prince. The couple saw a bottle of pool cleaner with ingredients spelled like that anti-malarial drug. And they drank and the man died and his spouse sickened. I honestly don’t know night from day until I read the Facebook feed of Prince Harry.
A few days ago, he shaved back his beard to a normal length, clipping away the supernatural length. Today, he announced that he had ordered a Plague Doctor mask. I was ecstatic. I had learned how Nostradamus, poet of prophetic verse, had fought to protect the city of Marseilles during a surge of the Black Death.
Held back by the science of the times, Plague Doctors accomplished enough good to be worth their weight in gold. Nostradamus knew herbs and medicines well, and he probably saved enough lives to earn his pay. He purveyed a rose pill he touted as a cure for Plague. He came to the notice of Royalty.
Prince Harold walking from city to city as a Plague Doctor would save lives, especially if people followed suit and wore masks too. On the march to Washington DC, he would attract a following, who would follow by webcam, socially distant. With the shorter beard, Prince Harold looks a lot like Nostradamus, to be frank.
The long leather nostril of the Plague Doctor mask stuffed with herbs and flowers probably filtered out enough contagion to allow the doctors to work closely with patients without contracting the plague. I’m just wondering what our Prince Harold will do next as he realizes that he knows better than many of those reporters and leaders who have led us astray.
That realization has consequences. Will he answer the call to go to New York City and bring his expertise to the front lines? Fans of our Prince Harold, stay tuned. And Harold, if you’re reading this, put a N95 mask under that Plague Doctor’s mask, no matter how hot it gets. We have a date for beer.
Protect yourself as you rescue us from what we don't understand.
Photograph of 17th-century plague doctor mask from Austria or Germany on display in Berlin's Deutsches Historisches Museum
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