Weird Wednesday: Doctor Dolittle

My Magic Man was no angel.  My personality type is basically conservative with a wild streak.  He, on the other hand, was a wild child with a old fashioned streak ... rebel to the bone.  Seems he was always in trouble with the law, and much of the time we were together was spent apart because he was in jail.

Now before you start thinking that I'm as bad as my blogger bud Just Plain Tired's Useless Co-Worker, and lacking a few screws in the judgment department, let me just say that this was in small town, rural Kentucky.  Think more along the lines of Bo and Luke of The Dukes of Hazzard and you'll get the idea.  Only in real life the "Boss Hog"s of this world mostly win and the boys end up in jail.  Hard as it may be to believe for most city folks, that show was really not much of an exaggeration.  The culture shock wasn't easy for me at all.

Hawk was Magic Man's totem animal.  They were always around him and when he went to jail it seemed they watched over me like a guardian spirit.  I wouldn't see them for weeks, but whenever I had a decision to make they would show up again. Whenever I made the drive to visit MM they would act like spotters along the way.

One time there was an accident up ahead of me on the freeway, but no way for me to know it.  The traffic hadn't even started backing up yet.  As I approached the exit before the accident, a shitload of hawks gathered and circled and swooped above the exit (hawks ... not buzzards, I know the difference) and acting strange enough to get my attention.  I knew something was up, exited the freeway and stopped at a gas station.  Because I had paid attention to the hawks, I avoided a big mess.  When I had to make a choice where to live, a hawk came up and landed on one of the trailers I was looking at.  I knew I had found our home. 

When I got back to South Carolina after the funeral for MM, I was an emotional train wreck.  In the space of about 6 weeks he had left me for the 2nd time, a friend had totaled my car, I had bought a truck, packed and moved to a place where I knew no one, got a job, got the call about the accident, gone back to Kentucky to bury him and had survived the funeral from hell.  Suffice it to say I was not thinking much about the mechanical workings of my 'new to me' used truck.

I wasn't feeling up to socializing at my new job yet.  When lunchtime came around, I'd go outside and find a place to sit by myself in the sun to eat and contemplate life.  My attention was pulled out from the constant running dialog going on inside my head one day by the sound of a hawks cry.  I looked up, there were several of them off in the distance, riding the thermals and calling to one another.  I watched them for a bit before I went back inside. 

When I came back out at quitting time, I heard the first cry ... out of sight and to one side of the parking lot.  Then an answering cry from another.  Definitely hawks, I was quite familiar with their voices by this time.  It felt rather surreal as I walked towards my truck. Suddenly there is a loud screech right over my head as this big black hawk flies over me to my truck where he swoops down and all but lands on the hood ... okay, okay you have my attention! ... only to fly on, then circle around and come back toward me BITCHING at me the whole way!  What in the world could that be abo .... "Check the oil"  ... what?  Where did that thought come from? "CHECK THE OIL"  Okay! Okay!  So I lifted the hood and checked the oil.

The dipstick was bone dry, nary a drop of oil on it anywhere.  DUH!  It's  a wonder I hadn't blown up the engine.  MM was great with engines and could fix anything mechanical.  I hadn't had to think about car maintenance in a long while because that was his department, so I don't suppose it's any great surprise I hadn't thought to check it.  A co-worker took me up to get some oil to put in before I drove it any further and all was well.

Some of you, I'm sure, will have what you consider to be a more rational explanation for this story than the bird put that thought in my head.  I can understand why you might think so, but I'm telling you that Hawk told me to check the oil.  Animals can communicate just fine, if we will pay attention to their language.  It's not always verbal, and when it is ... it's not always English, or even necessarily "audible".