Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Wierd Wednesday- Are you a catbirds kitten?

I grew up on a farm. Birds were everywhere, and my father was the king of strange enigmatic sayings such as "Don't know him from Adam's housecat!", "He's tighter than Dick's hatband" and "He's sure cuttin' a rusty!". When wanting to point out someone's uniqueness, he would say "He's a catbirds kitten.". Now, I have understood the point for decades, catbirds are birds, they don't have kittens, so a catbirds kitten is extremely unique. But the real question was, what the heck's a catbird?? Do they really exist? And if they do, why are they called catbirds? Do they eat cats? Do they look like cats? Did God make them just so my dad wouldn't have to say "He's unique" literally?

Is the catbird legend one of those bigfoot , jackalope kind of things? Well, a few years ago, I began to see these interesting birds around the yard. They were gray, with a dark stripe atop their noggin. I thought they were some kind of mockingbird variation.

Being as dense as I am, the light finally broke through to me one day a few weeks ago when I walked out one early morning, only to hear a sound and think, "that poor little kitten must be stuck in a tree, or lost, or hurt"... only to realize that a life-long journey was about to end.

The elusive catbird had finally made itself known to me...

Sometimes in the great epic searches, the frustrated searcher, exhausted from their fruitless endeavors, gives up any hope that they will see the goal of all their labor. It is just then that magically, that being sought seems to recognize the tenacity of their pursuer, and consents to be found.

Ponce De Leon had the fountain of youth, and I, the catbird. Only I actually found mine. (He did become the governor of Puerto Rico, which may be better, I don't know). I guess now I have to find something else for my life to revolve around...

(If you don't know about catbirds, then click here, and don't listen to the bozos taking the film)

2 comments:

S.D. Smith said...

Eureka!

The Boisverts said...

haha... that's so funny.

I saw and heard my first catbird this spring in the yard, too. Eureka indeed.