Frank Scoblete | Frank Scoblete

The All You Can’t Eat Buffet

I was in one of the produce aisles at Best Yet in Franklin Square, lazily waiting for my wife, the Beautiful AP, to select which delicious fruits and vegetables she would force me to eat.

The man was several feet away and chewing madly. He picked several grapes from a grape bag and shoved them into his mouth. He had little finesse as the grape juice went down his chin and dripped back into the grapes’ bins. Some unsuspecting shopper would buy grapes sprinkled with his spit.

Then he moved to the next batch of fruit, and the next. If he could ram it into his mouth he’d eat it. He even pushed small tomatoes in there.

I’d guess the guy was about 75 years old, neatly dressed. He did buy some items—a cantaloupe, a few avocadoes, a half watermelon. I guess these were not easy to gobble down in a single swallow. He did eat the heads off a couple of small bunches of broccoli.

This was a truly annoying man (let me say it straight—this was a disgusting, drooling man) who joined my supermarket buffet list; you know, those characters who think they can nibble this or that in the produce aisle because they might buy something.

There was the harried woman with the little brat riding in the cart (“Ma! Ma! Ma! I want that!”). She actually gave this whiny kid “free” produce. There was the fat man who ate delicately for about five minutes as if he were at a gourmet restaurant. He even tried an apple! He bought nothing.

How about this one? A woman ate a small slice of peach and – this is horrifying – put the uneaten part it back in the pile! Or the fine diner who carried around a small plate with her as she sampled the “buffet”!

Maybe these and others like them think they can do this because none of the store’s employees stop them.

Many of these gourmands are older and they brazenly swallow their prey with pride and defiance. They know no one would tackle a person using a walker.

As I watch these thieves fill their stomachs, I could lose the contents of mine.

[My new book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic is available at amazon.com, kindle, Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores.]

Found: The Great Horned Owl!

If you read my article “The Hunt for the Great Horned Owl” you’d recall that my wife the Beautiful AP, my son Mike and I spent three days in Cape May during Christmas trying to locate one of the great apex predators, the Great Horned Owl. I wanted to find this amazing creature so that I could go back to the South Shore Audubon Society (which is on Long Island) and tell the members that not only had we seen this bird but I was now no longer just a birdbrain in the society.

I wanted to strut around like a birding big shot.

Such wasn’t to happen. The Great Horned Owl didn’t make an appearance.

But yesterday at Hempstead Lake State Park on Long Island, one month after the defeat in Cape May, on our Sunday bird walk with the South Shore Audubon Society we got to see this awesome predator. Olga, a wonderful photographer with a keen eye, spotted one. What’s ironic is that the Beautiful AP and I didn’t expect to see any birds because the day was foggy and dreary. “Do birds come out in this crummy weather?” I asked. Evidently they do.

The 15 members stood in awe, photographing and exclaiming what a magnificent bird the Great Horned Owl is. The Beautiful AP shot dozens of blurry photographs with her new camera (AP has taken up photography) but one stood out (see below). At one point this usually nocturnal bird let loose and flew over our heads. The Great Horned Owl is large and strong!

So we saw it, watched it for quite a while and then continued on our birding expedition. We saw a variety of birds but the Great Horned Owl was the hit of the day!

Photo by A.P. Scoblete

[Read Confessions of a Wayward Catholic! On sale at Amazon.com, Kindle, Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores.]

Scobe’s 10 Commandments of Facebook

Facebook has been good for me. I have received hundreds of emails and public posts from my former students who told me in no uncertain terms that I did “the job” as a teacher. I have had readers of my books and articles tell me I have “done the job” as a writer as well. And my wife tells me when I take out the garbage that I have “done the job.” (I’m only kidding; she takes out the garbage.)

But Facebook does have its irritations.

Here are the 10 Commandments that you should follow, which will probably make most—and possibly all—of your Facebook friends happier and grateful.

Commandment #1: Thou shalt not tell people to “like and share if you agree.” Some posts go as far as to test people’s friendship by whether the person shares the post or not. If people want to share something you posted, they will without being told. Sharing or not sharing is not a measure of friendship.

Commandment #2: Thou shalt not try to spread “the word” because many of us don’t want to have words spread upon us. There are just too many “words” from heaven’s “wordsmiths” and you end up preaching to the choir, not the rest of us.

Commandment #3: Thou shalt not post that money, or good times, or magic moments are coming to us through angels, God, astrology or any new-age system unless you back it up with a guarantee and concrete evidence. Also if none of this happens to your friends give them your account numbers at the bank so they can get something out of your predictions. By the way, skeptics are doing nicely without any of these benedictions and predictions.

Commandment #4: Thou shalt not write posts that are hysterical; either politically (“Trump is Hitler!” “Hillary is a pedophile!”), religiously (“The world is about to end! Repent or be damned!”), conspiratorially (“The world is being run by a powerful secret group of people who have run it since the year 1300!” “The World Trade Center was blown up by Mossad!”), or anything truly dripping with anger, fear, despair or any other topics taken to such extremes that the person creating these extremities seems to be unhinged.

Commandment #5: Thou shalt not let your Facebook friends know too much about your problems. Yes, feel free to write about births and marriages and achievements of children, relatives, friends and you; and yes, tell us all about interesting trips and humorous times you’ve had. Come on, no one is a fan of neurotic people going on and on and on about their personal or mental problems. One “going on” is interesting and worthy of note (okay, maybe two) but 17 thousand “going on” posts are just too, too, too damn much. Thou shalt feel free to post about illness or other challenges in your life or in the lives of family and friends to ask for thoughts, prayers or assistance. Oh, yes, please don’t tell us “I’m really very shy” when you have blurted every thought you should reserve for your psychiatrist.

Commandment #6: Thou shalt know thyself. Don’t post saying, “I never write anything political, but I couldn’t resist this,” when 90 percent of your posts are political. Read your own posts and learn about yourself.

Commandment #7: Thou shalt post no more than four pictures of an event (or pet) so that your friends can view them without further clicking. You must not open the possibility that your Facebook friends will get lost in a sea of photos and never get back to the original page.

Commandment #8: Thou shalt not call someone with whom you’re disagreeing any repulsive names. You can’t win a debate by calling the other person an idiot, a moron, a bed bug, a ploppy, a turd and so forth. If it feels good to say it, then you’ve said the wrong thing.

Commandment #9: Thou shalt not post links to “news” articles unless you are sure the articles are about events that actually took place.

Commandment #10: Thou shalt not post more than one picture of food. This is a commandment to help all of us fatties. Please, have a heart!

[Read Confessions of a Wayward Catholic which is available at Amazon.com, kindle, Barnes and Noble, and bookstores.]

Look! A Big Bird with a Bright Orange Breast!

My fourth bird-watching expedition was to Hempstead Lake State Park on Long Island, New York. It was a lot of fun — even though I did make something of an ass of myself (something I am getting really good at).

The birding group composed of maybe 20 men and women, some quite old (some maybe dead), some quite smart and some I haven’t figured out yet; all bedecked in their bird watching gear of brown clothes with binoculars hanging from their necks, was an enthusiastic lot.

My wife the Beautiful AP and I were the rank amateurs in every way. Using our brand-new 8 x 42 powered binoculars every time someone said something such as “Look over there (pointing), a tan-breasted marmalade rotund chick flyer!” I’d put the binocs (being cool that’s what I now call them – binocs) to my eyes and try to focus on the bird – mostly where my fellow birders were pointing.

Inevitably I got branches and tree limbs or ground or marsh grass but I could never find the bird. The magnification of the binocs was great. I mean I could really see the stupid leaves of the stupid trees.

Maybe human eyesight and binoc sight are on a different level?

The bird walk took two hours and at the end of hour number one I had seen some birds. But usually only for a few seconds because those rotten birds could fly. Just as my binocs were honing in on them; off they would go! Pfft! That’s more annoying than someone talking during a movie.

All I was doing was basically tramping through the woods, over the tree roots that were above the ground. (“Please God; don’t let me break my ankle.”) I was sweating like a pig (do pigs sweat?) and fearful I would rub up against some poison ivy which seemed to be growing everywhere.

We came to the lake; a nice lake that was a little low on water since Long Island was not getting much rain. I binoced-in on a bunch that were lazing their way along the shore. Oh, yeah!

Other than huffing and puffing, I had not contributed anything to the bird-walk of our South Shore Audubon team except stuff like “I don’t see anything.” Or, “Is that poison ivy here?” “A yellow tufted what?” “The darn thing flew away!”

Then I saw them! Three Seagulls. Right at lakeside. “Look over there,” I shouted. “Seagulls! Three of them.” I pointed at them as if I were a pro.

Then a woman’s voice from the behind me said, “To a true birder there are no such thing as Seagulls. We just call them gulls. Seagulls don’t exist.”

(Oh, for crying out loud! Lady did you have to ruin my moment?)

My default is usually to say something funny in moments such as these and I went right to my default. I pointed to the “gulls” and said, “See, gulls!” There wasn’t a single laugh; not one stinking laugh. I thought “see, gulls” was funny. I was alone in the world on that one.

My other great moment came about 10 minutes later. I was scouring the lakeshore, trying to find some birds I could point to and make up for my “see, gulls” comment. I didn’t want to be on the outs with my new birding brethren. I had to redeem myself.

Then I saw it. A big bird with a bright orange breast; it was magnificent. “Everyone! Everyone! Across the lake. (I pointed triumphantly.) Over there. A big bird with a bright orange breast!”

Binoculars, far more powerful ones than those I had, held by birders far more experienced than I am, trained on the bird. (Oh, yeah; oh, yeah! Take that “see gull” lady!)

Then…

The telescope-man’s voice was kind, “Frank, that’s a pile of garbage.” Everyone laughed.

Listen to me; I still think “see, gulls” was funny.

[Read Frank’s new book I Am a Dice Controller: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Craps! Available at Amazon.com, kindle, Barnes and Noble and at bookstores.]

I Want to be Lazy!

My wife the beautiful AP said to me the other day, “You’re becoming one of these grumpy old men who sits around all day watching TV and spouting off like Archie Bunker.”

I wish. Oh, how I wish!

You see for my life up to now (69 years as I write this!) I have been a Type A personality (make that Type A+). I’ve been working real jobs since I was 12 years old. Some of these jobs were not glamorous: cleaning sewers, cleaning giant roach-infested elevator shafts in public housing, cleaning and collecting trash, sweeping up the debris from drug addicts in public parks, and teaching public school.

I’ve written 35 books. I wrote four in one year for Triumph Books, a division of Random House. Not short books but nice big, fat hefty ones. The year-of-the-four I also continued to write my articles and columns for a thousand magazines and newspapers (well, not quite a thousand). I also wrote a couple of television shows.

How did I do this? By working 12-hour days and not watching much television or even relaxing much. I did shower though, so no one had to smell my fevered writer’s body. I also got really fat. When I was an actor I was a slim, well-built leading man – now I would be the fat, comical neighbor.

I do not (as in do not) want to do that anymore. I want to take a break like for the rest of my mortal days , and work a lot less, yes, and be (yes! yes!) lazy. I am going to work on being lazy–a lot.

Even when I was teaching, I’d get up early, write like a maniac, go teach and come home and continue my manic ways. I am one full year ahead on my columns for a number of publications, even weeklies! I know, I know; that is ridiculous but I can’t seem to stop myself.

So what I‘ve done these past six (or more!) months is this: I write for three hours, also answer what is becoming a mountain of email, and then I say to myself, “Screw working any longer; I am going to watch a movie (or two damn it) every day.” So I’ve watched movies or an orgy of a given television show such as Breaking Bad to fill the time when I would have been working.

I fidgeted through them for a while, like some drug addict giving up his beloved heroin. But I am now calming down. Oh, baby, I am getting into the lazy thing. It’s great!

Here is a list of how I am being lazy (as told to me by my wife):

When I finish eating or snacking I do not put my dirty dishes in the dish washer; I put them in the sink which is right next to the dish washer, but I am now too lazy to bend and pull the door open. That feels so good.
Years ago the housekeeper quit, so I replaced her with my wife. When she vacuums the living room I help her by lifting my feet up so she can vacuum under me and my recliner. Same goes for when she mops the floor.
I used to thoroughly clean the bathroom twice per week. Now on rare occasions I do it. My wife inspects the job I do and notes that it looks just as dirty as when I started and accuses me of cleaning with my glasses off. (She’s right, but please don’t tell her.) She then re-cleans it while muttering, “Hopeless. Incompetent.”

My friends and readers: I am going to keep practicing my laziness until I get it down pat… or die. I want to become an expert at it.

“Honey, my love, my Beautiful AP, my darling, bring me the remote please! Ouch! Why did you hit me in the head with it?”

[Frank’s new book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic is available on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, at bookstores and at the Vatican — not really the Vatican, he’d be excommunicated if they read it.]

The Titmouse and My Grandson

I have three squirrel-proof bird feeders outside the large windows in my office. As I write I can see these “little schweeties” as my wife calls them, flying, eating and squabbling out there in my corner of nature.

I know I will never be a birding expert. For example, we have a host of different kinds of sparrows that come to the feeders and although I can see differences among them, I am hard pressed to identify each and every kind. I just point and say, “Man, look at all those different kinds of sparrows!”

But I can identify a number of birds. One that I love, for example, is the tufted titmouse. It’s a pretty little creature that comes to my feeders even in the dead of winter.

Now, in addition to my birding hobby, another hobby of mine concerns my grandchildren. I happen to like them, a boy 11 and a girl nine. Not all grandparents like their grandchildren, mind you, no matter what some grandparents proclaim.

I want to talk about the birds to them (not the birds and the bees) and include them in my new hobby, but I hesitate. My granddaughter would at least tolerate me going on about our feathered friends; but my grandson might be a different story.

You see, he’s a boys’ boy and that means he is interested in all the things we boys’ boys are interested in–come on, I don’t have to spell it out for you, do I? Bodily stuff like farts, vomit and poop, yes. But above all else, sex stuff – any stuff to do with females.

I’ll give you an example: Ever since he heard the word “wiener” he’s been using it nonstop to describe his own wiener and anything he can attach the word “wiener” to. He is as interested in his wiener as is Anthony Weiner, but as far as I know he has not texted an image of it to anyone. And all that stuff about women? Forgetaboutit!

So here’s what will happen when I tell him about my love of tufted titmice.

Grandson: “Tit, oh, ho, ho, tits! Ha! Ha! Grandpa Scobe said tit! Tit! Tit!”

Grandpa Scobe: “No, that’s just its name. Tufted titmouse.”

Grandson: “Tits, tits, tits, yeah, yeah!”

I can imagine that during the entire day (and then some) he would incorporate the word “tit” as much as he could. That’s just what I’d need, my grandson telling my daughter-in-law that Grandpa Scobe had been talking about tits. My son would kill me.

But my grandson is not the only one. When my wife the Beautiful AP first told me the name of that pretty bird, I responded: “Tit? Ha! Ha! Tit! Tit! I have a tit at my feeders.”

Beautiful AP: “Scobe, come on, titmouse is its name; not just tit.”

Scobe: “Ah ha!”

Beautiful AP: “Grow up.”

Scobe (whispering): “Tit.”

So I am going to figure out how to get around telling him about titmice. He will see several when he comes to my house and looks out the window, so I have to figure out something when he asks, “What’s that bird?”

I am just hoping there isn’t a bird called “tit-wiener” because then we will never hear the end of it.

[Check my books at Amazon.com and bookstores.]

My Guppy Is Gay

I have four fish tanks in my house: a five gallon tank with a Beta and five guppies (this sits right here on my desk); a 20 gallon tank with 18 guppies and 12 neon tetras; and a 55 gallon tank with eight really big angel fish and about 14 platies. Then I have the monster, the 205 gallon tank with an assortment of fish.

Platies are live bearers and, although this is gruesome, my angels have gotten huge because they devour the platies’ constant supply of babies. Between the flake food and platy babies my angels have a good, clean, healthy diet. The 55 gallon tank is right behind my desk in my home office.

So the five, the 20, the 55 and the 205 gallon tanks are in my office.

Today I got in an order of 12 more really, really fancy guppies for my 20 gallon tank, four males and eight females You always need more females because the males are maniacs when it comes to sex—they must have 100 orgasms a day! Then I noticed something—one of my new, magnificently beautiful male guppies is gay, I kid you not.

After they got used to the tank, which for guppies takes about five minutes, the other male guppies were nailing the female guppies all over the place. These fellows have constant boners. They are like 12-year-old human males.

But this particular guppy didn’t go near a female. No. Instead he’d go under the male guppies and try to copulate with them (dare I say this?) anally. I mean, guppies do have, uh, openings and you should see how long and fearsome their do-do’s are but this guy was going for the exit. He totally ignored the females. (You cannot mistake a male guppy for a female. They are two totally different looking fish.)

I watched for a good half hour and not once did he give a damn about the females scurrying all over the place trying to escape the rapaciousness of the other male guppies. This guy just kept trying to plow the other guys. I’ve never seen anything like it. A gay fish! It has nothing to do with his upbringing or a desire to turn his sexuality in a different direction. His DNA simply said, “Yay, gay!”

Then I noticed something else—something amazing—one of my new female guppies is a lesbian, I swear to God. What the hell was going on? There was one female Guppy who fought—and I mean went head to head—with the male guppies trying to, uh, court her. She was a tough gal. The male guppies were much smaller and actually afraid of her. Of course, the raging boners of the males made them go to her time and again and she just violently shoed them away.

The male guppies had to avoid the jabs of my gay guppy and then they had to be really wary of the big female guppy who seemed to have murder in her heart.

It is possible that this is an evolutionary breakthrough—although I don’t know how the gay guppy and the lesbian guppy will reproduce more of their kind. I only have this to say, God created these guppies so He must approve of them and want them to (you know) do whatever the hell they do.

(My new book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic is now available at Amazon.)

Huck Finn and The Declaration of Independence

The school board of a Virginia school has decided to take Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn out of its curriculum because someone complained about the use of the term “nigger.” This district isn’t alone. Since its publication in 1888, the book has garnered a lot of criticism, not just for that term but for the cruel and racist life it shows in the Antebellum south. It is probably the most banned book in America.

Banning this book is the equivalent of banning the Declaration of Independence, as I will explain.

But first, a precise and accurate quote by Ernest Hemingway: “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.”

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a hilariously satiric tale of a vagabond boy (Huck Finn) who travels America with Jim, an escaped slave who is looking for freedom and to then buy his family from their slave owners. The book is told by Huck in his common dialect. It is like stepping back in time to hear Huck and Jim and others of that epoch speak.

At its core, what is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn about? Oh, certainly it is a sendup of hypocritical values and the folks who have them. It is also the gradual opening of Huckleberry’s mind to the reality of what his society is – a society where he is one of the lowest of the low, being a poor, abused white kid whose father is a truly evil man, and it also tells the story of an individual, Jim, who is even lower on the social scale, if he is even on the social scale – because Jim is a slave, a piece of property, in a world that has little compassion for his station.

How were blacks viewed in those days?

When Huck is making up a story for Aunt Sally, he weaves a tale of a shipwreck he experienced.

Aunt Sally asks “‘Good gracious, anybody hurt?’”

Huck’s response: “‘No’m, killed a nigger.’”

Aunt Sally sums it up: “‘Well, it’s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt.’”

There you have the southern society’s attitude perfectly stated. No people were killed because a “nigger” isn’t actually a part of the “people” world. Huck doesn’t think twice about his statement nor does Aunt Sally. But the reader certainly does!

In the pivotal scene of the book, where perhaps the greatest American literary line was ever penned, Huck struggles with his conscience over helping Jim to escape. He has been taught that slaves are not actually people and that Jim is the property of someone else. Huck knows, because he’s been well-taught, that helping a slave escape is terribly, terribly wrong:

“So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn’t know what to do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I’ll go and write the letter – and then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light as a feather, right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote:

“Miss Watson your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send.

“ HUCK FINN

“I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn’t do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking – thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking.

“And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me, all the time; in the day, and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a floating along, talking, and singing, and laughing. But somehow I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind.

“I’d see him standing my watch on top of his’n, stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him agin in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me, and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had smallpox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he’s got now; and then I happened to look around, and see that paper.

“It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:

“‘All right, then, I’ll go to hell’” – and tore it up.”

This is the moment – “All right, then, I’ll go to hell” – when Huckleberry Finn, a prisoner of society’s false notions of racial inequality epitomized by the institution of slavery, makes his personal declaration of independence and frees himself. This young man is willing to go to Hell, to eternally burn for his sin of seeing Jim as a real person, a friend, a mentor. Huckleberry Finn was compelled to make the morally correct decision. Yes, he has broken with the past. He will go to Hell but in reality he saves his soul.

In this scene, Huck Finn represents America at its best.

Now to the schools and libraries that have banned the book; to the individuals who only read the word “nigger” in the book without any idea of why it is used and of how the reader should actually feel as the book progresses, I can only say I wish there were a Huck Finn in your conscience; a person who could tear up the letter of your mistaken notions and your sad desire to squash one of the greatest books of all time.

[Read my new book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic!]

The Search for the Great Snowy Owl

All the birders (birders are bird watchers but “birder” sounds stronger and classier than bird watcher) were at Jones Beach West Field #2, tromping through the sand and the dunes with one harried lady scolding us: “Do not walk on the grass on the dunes!” We were not listening; instead we tromped all over the grass which was unavoidable since it was under our feet.

The grass is not like the grass on your lawn or on a golf course. Each stalk is about a foot or two high and every couple of inches there it was. You couldn’t help but step on the grass. But this lady, protecting our planet as she had a “Protect Our Planet” shirt on, was adamant. Everyone smiled at her benignly and she finally gave up the fight and stepped on the grass too.

Birders were all over the place – on the dunes, the beach, near the parking lot. Wherever you looked, there was a birder or groups of birders in their birding clothes with binoculars pointed wherever they thought they would see the creature we had all come to Jones Beach to see, the great Snowy Owl.

My group is from the South Shore Audubon Society and we were hunting for that great Snowy Owl also known as Bubo scandiacus. (Bubba scandiacus, if you are from the south.) We hungered to see it as these owls are tough to spot around our area since they hang out in the Arctic, which is a long drive from Long Island, New York. In the fall they migrate to the south. I guess these birds are the real snow birds, not to be confused with NY senior citizens who spend three months in Florida every winter.

Now, birding is not a precise activity. The leaders of our group saw the Snowy Owl just a few days earlier and some photographed it. So, everyone excitedly looked here, there and everywhere to catch a glimpse of this magnificent owl. Alas, after an hour and twenty minutes of climbing, walking and binoculing, Mr. Owl didn’t make an appearance. I have printed a great one from Claire Reilly, a pro photographer, who photographed the bird several days later on Jones Beach.

That night, after our day’s disappointment, my wife the Beautiful AP and I watched a documentary titled Wild Arctic and one beautiful sequence had a fabulous video of this fabulous bird. In the birding world, this sighting doesn’t count. We can’t put it on the list we’re not keeping (see article “The Pelican Brief”). But the documentary was great to watch.

snowyowl

Photo by Claire Reilly

[Read my new book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic!]

Times, They are a Changin’

If you told me 10 or more years ago that I would become a birder (as in a bird watcher) I would have said you were nuts. Only maniacs want to go out into the forest or parks or bays to look at birds. Seriously now, look at birds? Insane.

But now I am ambling through some of the most beautiful parks and bays on Long Island with dozens of birders, and with my wife the Beautiful AP—and I am a truly happy man, a truly happy birder.

I never knew we had such beauty on Long Island. It’s as if I’ve moved to a whole new locale. In a way, I have. I am now one of those nutty birders out there with my binoculars and my special birding hat and when I see one of these beauties (even ugly birds are beautiful) I get a real charge.

I’ll admit in those long-gone years of my birding disdain I figured incorrectly that all birders were deranged. They must be wackos of the wackiest way to do what they did, so I thought. Having met them, most are smart, interesting and committed people – although one or two or a few are indeed out of their minds. Still, isn’t that true of most groups – a few maniacs interspersed with smart, interesting and committed people?

We go out birding on Sundays at 9 a.m. We’ve been to Francis J. Levy Park, Hempstead Lake State Park, Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, Jones Beach West End, Mill Pond Park, Massapequa Preserve, Point Lookout Town Park and Lido Preserve, and indeed more are on the upcoming schedule. The Beautiful AP and I are even contemplating going to Costa Rica on a birding expedition.

I’ve seen all sorts of birds on these walks; colorful songbirds, wading birds and a variety of those awesome predators of the skies—hawks! One was sitting atop of a tree munching (this is indelicate) on another bird. An amazing sight! This was at Jones Beach West End.

I do not know the names of all the birds I’ve seen. Yes, there are birders who are experts and they identify the birds and easily describe their behaviors, calls, plumage changes and migratory patterns. I listen and try to learn, but I am a slow learner in this field.

Sundays have become “date days” for the Beautiful AP and me. We go birding then go out for a romantic lunch. Yes, a decade or more ago, I would have called this a cheap date. But times have changed. Now with my wife at my side, I happily clad myself in garb laden with pockets and strap on a water bottle and binoculars over that, to tread through mud and bush to spy on winged creatures—and I am ever surprised by what I see.