All For the Byrd

“Get up!  Get up, you lazy son of a _____!!”  

Dr. Mitchell A. Byrd and Peregrine Falcon

Dr. Mitchell A. Byrd bolted upright, jolted from his brief unplanned snooze.  “What! What! I'm up! I'm up!”.  Luckily, he didn’t jump up and hit his head on the low ceiling of the blind.

Doug Davis, realizing the misunderstanding, roared with laughter.  “Not you, Dr. Byrd.  The Pigeon!”

Both of them were sitting in a duck blind, on the edge of a salt marsh on Fisherman Island, Virginia.  And the pigeon in question was the bait in a live trap which they had set in order to trap, band, and release birds of prey - mostly small to medium-sized hawks.  The pigeon had to move around in order to attract the hungry raptors.  Both the pigeon and Dr. Byrd had dozed off in the heat of the day.

I knew about this, because I was doing the same thing at the same time.  From 1977 to 1980, I was a Biology graduate student at William & Mary (officially, The College of William & Mary in Virginia).  I wandered all over eastern Virginia studying birds of prey, and Bald Eagles in particular.  My major professor, believe it or not, was Dr. Mitchell A. Byrd, of the Virginia Byrds (e.g. Admiral Byrd).  

Fisherman Island is located at the eastern end of the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, connecting Norfolk, Virginia to the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay.  It’s an ideal place for finding all sorts of birds, as long as you are prepared to fight off the dreaded Eastern Shore mosquitoes.  Eastern Shore mosquitoes don’t fly.  They take taxis!  Mosquitoes, chiggers, ticks - they’re all part of the bargain if you want to study wildlife biology in eastern Virginia.

Doug was also a Biology grad student, and we were working with Dr. Byrd.  The purpose of the trapping and banding was to be able to track the movements and migration patterns of these birds. The live trap looked like a ring of metal, divided in two halves, connected by hinges and a spring.  Looped onto the rim of the trap was a green net of soft twine or plastic.  The pigeon’s feet were carefully (and gently) tethered to a metal disc in the center of the trap.  Should a hawk swoop down to take the bait, Doug would pull a cord to snap the trap shut on the unsuspecting hunter.  Generally, the pigeon remained unscathed (though not particularly sympathetic to the cause of wildlife conservation). 

Now, back to our story: I was in a similar blind not far away.  We had all started together in the same blind.  But Doug, a native of Norfolk and an experienced bird trapper, and Professor Dr. Mitchell A. Byrd, Ph.d., had ceded the blind to me because nothing was happening, and they were getting bored.  I was  the new guy, so I got to babysit the more unproductive location.  “Come and get us if you need some help!”.

So, off they went, leaving me to my own devices.  I knew the theory of how this was supposed to work, but never had experienced the operation in practice. So I cracked open a cold Coke and a bag of Fritos, and made myself as comfortable as possible, given the heat, humidity, and parasites.

In order to make this work, you have to keep an eye out for movement in the sky.  When you see something, you pull on the string that is connected to the pigeon’s foot, so that it flops around as if it was injured - a tasty morsel.  Twenty minutes, half an hour, an hour...I don’t remember how much time passed, before I thought I saw a speck circling over the marsh.  I got my pigeon moving.  The speck came closer and grew larger. It circled closer.  Long tail, wings in a shallow V, conspicuous white patch at the base of the tail...a Marsh Hawk!  Come on baby.  Come to mama.  Got a nice hot lunch for ya.

Marsh Hawk

He swooped in and landed next to the pigeon, checking it out.  Closer...a little closer...SNAP!  The trap sprang over him.  What a great feeling!  Touchdown!  Basket! Home Run!  A moment of ecstasy, followed by one of terror.  “Now, what do I do?”  OK, Norm.  You can do this.  The one thing you’ve got going for you is your willingness to humiliate yourself.

Getting the Marsh Hawk out of the netting, while simultaneously keeping him from flying away, and not getting stabbed by one of his needle sharp talons, is no small feat. Birds of prey aren’t accustomed to using their sharp beaks as weapons the way that smaller birds do.  Their weapon is their talons. The trick is to reach underneath the trap with both hands, secure his wings by holding them closely to his body with both hands, and slide him out from under the trap with his talons away from you.  Careful, careful....done!

So there I was, both hands occupied holding a very nervous Marsh Hawk - about 18 inches long from beak to tail, with a wingspan of about 45 inches.  Now what??!!

Well. I might as well go down and show my prisoner to Dr. Byrd and Doug.  They’ll know what to do.  So I trekked through the dunes to the other blind, about five minutes away.  

-  “Hey, Guys!”

-  “What?”

-  “What do I do now?”

Curiously, they came rattling out of the blind.  Their jaws dropped!

That was all we trapped that day.  The hawk was banded and released, no harm done.  And Yours Truly rode off into the sunset.  Miller Time!  

Every evening, at 5 PM, without fail, Dr. Byrd insisted it was “Happy Hour”.  Sometimes, a few of us grad students would assemble at Dr. Byrd’s home to sip on his favorite libation - Chivas Regal.  I’m sure I deserved it that day.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been more than 30 years since that day on Fisherman Island.   

And Dr. Mitchell A. Byrd is now Director Emeritus of the Center for Conservation Biology at William & Mary.  Doug Davis, last I heard anyway, was working for the US Army Corps of Engineers as an Environmental Biologist.  But that was a long time ago.

I completed my Bald Eagle research, and got my MA in 1980.  The only job I ever got in the field was as a volunteer, re-introducing captive-bred Peregrine Falcons into the wild, on Great Fox Island, Virginia in the Chesapeake Bay not far from Crisfield, Maryland.  

Ten months later, I came to Israel on the Sherut La’Am volunteer program.  I volunteered for a while with Dr. Yossi Leshem at Beit Sefer Sede Har Gilo.  He headed the Israel Raptor Information Center at the time, and was studying Lappet-Faced Vultures in the Negev. Then I volunteered with Misrad HaPenim for a while, working to encourage research on the upper Jordan River.  

And that, my friends, was the end of my biology career.

Now that I live in Israel, I keep talking to myself about getting over to the Kfar Etzion Field School to do some guided bird watching.  The main problem is that my Hebrew is so embarrassing.  Really have to get over that one, though.

Dr. Byrd is about 88 years old now.  I haven’t seen him since the day I left Williamsburg, Virginia in 1982.  One of the last things he said to me was “We’re going to miss your curly little head around here.”  I’ve tried to contact him several times in recent years, to let him know how grateful I am for those years I spent with him at W & M, but I have never heard back from him.  Perhaps he’s too busy, not interested, doesn’t really have anything to say, or simply doesn’t remember me.  Or maybe the Chivas Regal has taken its toll ! But it makes me happy to think about him.

What a trip I’ve had through life.  So many different goals and experiences, seemingly unrelated.  Were they all dead ends, or necessary pieces in the jigsaw puzzle?  I have tons more snapshot memories like this one, and I just don’t know how they all fit together. 

Is everyone somewhat overwhelmed by the journeys life has taken?

Or is it just me?

Cousin Harry

Cousin Harry, A"H, was quite a character.  

Actually, he was not really my cousin.  He was my wife’s cousin.  My Father-in Law’s first cousin.  Harry Lyons was married twice, but never had children of his own.  

Harry grew up in Lexington, Virginia toward the end of the 19^th century, and during the beginning of the 20^th, along with my Father-in-Law, Sidney Lyons, A"H.  Harry went into Dentistry, and made quite a name for himself.  He was at one point the President of the American Dental Association (you know, the ones that put their seal of approval on toothpaste.  Remember those old Crest commercials?), and he was also the Dean of the Dental School of the Medical College of Virginia.  There is a whole building named after him there.  A true Virginia Gentleman (not the Bourbon).  

His sister Tillie ,A"H, by the way, became the first female Dentist in Virginia.  That was during WWI, when all the men were off in Europe.  My daughter, Tova, is named after Cousin Tillie, whose Yiddish name was Toba.  As you can imagine, Harry had his own ideas about things, and he was kind of stubborn, although always a gentleman.  He was driving his Cadillac (always a Cadillac) well into his nineties before he was finally convinced to turn in his wheels.

I do not remember the first time I met Harry.  It was probably sometime between the time my wife and I were engaged, and when we were married.  I liked him immediately.  And he liked me.  But neither of us would admit it.  It was that kind of relationship.  He would get on my case about my beard, my religious tendencies, and my dog.  As a Dental School Dean, he did not approve of beards.  Very unsanitary.  Religiously, he was Reform, if anything, but very supportive of Israel.  In fact, he went over several times in the early days of the State to help them set up standards for dentistry.  

To give an example of how our relationship worked, I once called him up on the phone for some reason, maybe just to say hello.   When he answered I said, “Hi Harry.  This is the person in the world you like the least”.  Without missing a beat, he cheerfully replied, “Oh, hello Norman!”

Harry did not mind the dog until our first son was born, and therein lies a tale.

Like I said, Harry never had children of his own.  When my wife was carrying our first child, Harry told us that if we had a son and named him Harry, he would give us a million dollars.  Now, understand that Harry was not just whistling Dixie.  He actually had the wherewithal to carry out such a gesture.  I believe that he was serious, but at the same time making it sound just enough like a joke to give him some wiggle room.  I just could not see my way clear to follow through.  Harry?  For my son?  For money?  Fortunately, my wife felt the same way.

Shortly after our son was born (David), we received a note from Harry with a check enclosed.  The check was made out for one million dollars, but was not signed.  The enclosed note said that if we had named him Harry, the check would have been signed!  I wish we had saved that note!

Nevertheless, we remained close.  Since we lived in Charlottesville, Virginia at the time, and he lived in Richmond, we would exchange visits.  He and Tillie (who lived in Oregon with her son) were worried about having a dog around the baby.  They were very sweet.

Of course, they are both gone now, along with that great generation of Southern Jews who achieved incredible success in the first half of the 20^th century.  I have done some reading about this, and it is truly a remarkable history that most of us “New Yawkas” are completely ignorant of.

I often think about Harry, and his million-dollar offer.  After years of paying Yeshiva tuition, I am sure it would have come in handy.  But mostly, I just miss him.

The real question I ask myself is: if I had accepted the offer and named my son Harry, what would that have meant about me?  Who would I have been?  Who would my son have been?  Would I now have the outstanding Daughter-in-law that I have now, and my one in a million (no pun intended) Grandchildren?

From my learning in Chasidus, I have extracted some understanding about the nature of the choices we make.  I’m talking about choosing, not selecting.  Selecting is what you do in the supermarket – Cheerios or Grape Nuts.   I had a decision to make about who I was, and who I wanted to be, and who I wanted my son to be.  I realized some time ago, while learning the Baal HaTanya’s Iggeres HaTshuva, that there is only one power in the world that can stand against the will of God.  That power is our bechira, our ability to choose.  No other creation has this ability to choose.  Not one.  This may be the essence of the meaning of being created betzelem Elokim (in the image of God).

The obvious derivative of this is that no choice is trivial.  So, back more than 30 years ago, when my guts wouldn’t let me take money to name my child, that choice created a koach in the world – a Malach (angel) perhaps – that has had a ripple effect not only for me, but for generations.  It’s scary to think what would have been if I had chosen otherwise.  And I had no idea at the time what the ramifications could be.  

How many times have I chosen poorly, and what could have been different?

There’s no way of knowing, but I wonder all the same.

Or is it just me?

Churban

I lost a friend today.

No, it wasn't due to an attack, or an accident, or an illness.

And I mourn.

I mourn because something I loved was snatched from me, because I didn't meet some unrealistic expectations.

I mourn for a ripening cluster of grapes that withered on the vine because they were purple, and the vine insisted they be green.

Could there be a "better" time for a tangible reason to mourn, than the three weeks between the 17th of Tammuz, and Tisha B'Av?

The Churban, the destruction, of the Beit HaMikdash - it is not the building that we mourn the loss of  - it is the relationship with God that evaporated before our eyes.  That is something worth mourning.

The adult child of a friend of mine was recently burned out of her home.  Only her most cherished belongings were saved.  She does not mourn.  What was lost were "things".  Despite the disruption, difficulty, and expense - only "things" were lost.  Her family is with her.  Her friends are with her. God is with her.  He has not increased His distance, or hidden His face.

We mourn during this time for the loss of relationship, not the loss of a building.

I have heard from many people that they are having challenges in relationships during this three week period.  How we deal with those challenges may determine the length of our spiritual exile.

I tried to speak to the Creator.  It was hard, and strange.  But I heard the answer.  The answer was:
"Be grateful for the rebuke".

Rebuke is a powerful pathway toward humility.  Someone once said "sometimes he needs a good kick in the pants with his orange juice in the morning".   True rebuke comes out of love.  So through the rebuke, I know that the Creator is trying to wake me up, to fix me.  Because it's important to Him.

Thank you, HaShem, for rebuking me.

But I also ask You, exactly what is it that I'm being rebuked for?  My list of shortcomings is long.

And I still mourn.  And maybe that's the lesson.  Maybe to mourn properly for the loss of the greater connection, I need to feel the loss of a lesser connection?  For that, I am grateful, because I've said in the past that we have too much mourning in our yearly cycle.  Maybe that was my mistake.  I don't know.  But this will be on my mind on Tisha B'Av.  Maybe the tears will come. I will be disappointed if they don't.

I ask why it is that there are people that demand so much - that keep an itemized list of who owes them what - a rigid standard of what is required of friendship?

I heard Rabbi Zev Leff speak over Pesach.  Something he said has stuck with me.  He said that some people have a pre-conceived notion of how Moshiach will come.  So much so, that if Moshiach comes in some other way, they will refuse to recognize it.  He said that Moshiach will come in a manner of his own choosing, and it is up to us to relinquish our rigid notions of the manner of his arrival.

So, I want to say to my friends and family, that I cherish you.  Not for who I want you to be, but for who you are. And I am grateful that you accept me, warts and all, for exactly who I am.  Friendship depends on forgiveness, for we usually let each other down in one way or another.

To be unable to forgive, is to choose exile over redemption.

Or is it just me?