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Welcome to "Thoughtlets." This is a weekly review of an idea, belief, thought, or words that will hopefully be of some benefit to you, my children, with an electronic copy to on-line extended family members. Any of you can ask me not to clutter your mail box at any time.
"Melanie and I went to see `George of the Jungle' yesterday. It is really bad. This is the first movie I have gone to, laughed through, and yet can still readily say I do not recommend anyone going to see it. If you have seen the previews you have seen the entire movie. There is a little bit of a story line to go with the preview shots, and not much. When I asked Sara if she would like to go to this movie with us, she said: `No way, I'm not going to that movie.' She is right on!
As Melanie and I were driving to the movie, she said `Dad, why do you want to see this movie?' I responded, `Because, based on the previews and the review in the paper, it is about me. You see when I was in fifth grade I read all 23 of Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan series. I was Tarzen. Dad and I went to see all of the Johnny Wesmiller Tarzan movies. I would go down to the old barn where Darrell had set up a rope swing and practice swinging. I would go down to the old grainery and climb around all of the the big grain silos like they were big trees and mountains. I remember how Melissa Thorley used to get so mad at me because I always got an extra credit on my Tarzan book reports from Mr. Holman because I would draw a picture to go with my book report. Plus I turned in a lot of extra credit book reports. And I still act like Tarzan, only now I keep swinging into trees: George, George, George of the Jungle, Watch out for that tree!'
[Of course, if you look at the picture of Roice diving backwards off of the cliffs in Dark Rock Canyon off of the Colorado River, as shown on the attached gif image which he sent to me this week and which I posted at http://www.walden3d.com/hrnmen/1997/9730.html, it could be deduced this jumping into things which hurt is a genetically based tendency.]
I continued: `Besides the Tarzan connection, the hero is named George. I've told you about my pet great horned owl named George, haven't I?' She said: `Nope.' So I told her about George. This is an expanded version of what I told Melanie on the way to Katy-Mason Theater. My Grandma Nelson died on March 11th of 1965, and I had George as a pet before this major change in my life occured. I also recall taking George to Mr. Sorenson, my high school biology teacher, and this would have occured in the spring of 1966 when I was a sophmore in High School. Anyways, early in the spring of 1965 or 1966 we went over to Calf Springs Ranch to check on everything. There was a nest of Great Horned Owls in the barn and the baby owls were just about ready to fly away. So I caught one, took him home, and named him George. I bought a dog collar and put it around his leg and connected it to a small rope tied around my arm so when he flew off he could not go very far. I would put on heavy leather gloves and get George to sit on my hand. George was about 18 inches tall, and was absolutely beautiful. He didn't like people very much. When I took his to school and showed him to Mr. Sorenson I discovered it was illegal to have a Great Horned Owl in captivity. Mr. Sorenson and the other science teacher took pictures of George, which I still have, somewhere, amidst all of the stuff in the 100+ boxes currently in my bedroom. I remember how Kenny Webster, a former friend who taunted me in 9th and 10th grade, said: `Look, the Birdman of Alcatraz!' when he saw me taking George into the High School. I still remember it was a neat experience to see all the girls (and guys) reactions to George going down the hall between classes.
Besides the raw natural power George had, it was a real experience to feed and take care of George. I kept him in the chicken coop behind my Grandma Nelson's house. We started off feeding him liver and other raw waste meat from Nelson Meat Packing Plant. However, he could keep all of this straight protein down. We discovered he needed fur, bones, feathers, and other supplimentary food to digest the meat. So I became a mouse catcher. I would go take apart old hay stacks and catch as many mice as I could. I started a mouse nursery and had a dozen or so available to feed George. He would eat a couple of mice and a couple of birds a day. I spent hours with my 22-caliber rifle hunting birds to feed George. I know it must of been the spring because I remember Grandma Nelson questioning my killing a Robin to feed George. When my mouse farm became infested with maggots, and the mice started to die, I decided it was better to let George go. It was hard to do. I was really attached to that bird and had the belief he was attached to me. I took the collar off of his foot and left the door to the chicken coop open one night before going up to the house. He was gone the next morning. I kept looking for him, thinking George would return. There was a big nest in the trees by Darrell's tree house a year later, and yet I never saw the birds which made it.>
So as we drove to the movie, Melanie just looked at me cock-eyed. When we left we both wondered why we had gone to see the movie. It is really corny. Melanie did keep saying `George, George, George of the Jungle, Watch out for that tree!' We went back to the house and she took off to do something with some of her friends. Sara came home briefly, after spending a week on the farm at the house of one of her friend's Father, up by Austin. A little while later, as I left to go to the grocery store, I saw a little baby bird in the middle driveway. It looks like it is either a baby Blue Jay or a baby Mockingbird. He seems to have been pushed out of the nest too early, and so I have another George. It was really funny to watch Sara hold, chase, be chased by, feed, pet, and take care of George later in the evening. She was so afraid George couldn't breathe. She took the bowl I had over him off and replaced it with a bowl used to strain spaghetti. I expect George will be able to fly and stay away from cats within a week or so. We will turn him loose then. In the meantime he is a real talker and it has been nice to have the chirping in the house. It reminds me of one of the last things said in the Pairs class: `If you love something dearly, let it go free, if it comes back to you it is yours and if it doesn't come back it was never yours.'"