Pelicans are underrated. They don't get the credit they deserve. Well, just listen to this: My niece, Olivia, once wrote an ode to a pelican when she was about ten years old. Here it is:
A clumsy pelican
glides above
the crystal blue
ocean
Its cream beak
as long
as a sword
but as dull
as
a boring poem.
Its sharp
oak brown eyes
scan the water
searching
for colorful fish.
This little piece of writing should be required reading for all students everywhere. It describes a miracle just as it happens. Pelicans are dinosaur throwbacks with attitude. Pelicans are the underappreciated soldiers of the oceans' edges. After watching these "swords" dive-bomb into chocolate Jekyll Island waters against that "tangerine sun", I knew it was time. I vowed to carry a pelican back to Michigan. I vowed to plant a concrete pelican to stand sentry over my Michigan yard.
While vacationing on Jekyll Island a few years back, my wife, Sue, came down with a sudden and convenient urinary tract infection which made a purchase possible. When a thing like a cement pelican comes together with a thing like a bladder infection, it's called a thing in Turkish known as "kismet". And amazingly, the Turkish word for "bladder infection" is "pelikan".
So when there was a lull in Sue's urgent need to pee, we shot off the Island and over the sprawling bridge and causeway to the city of Brunswick, Georgia. Sue got on her cell phone to her doctor's office about her symptoms and reported that she's had these UTIs before, and that all she really needed was for them to prescribe some antibiotics, and to fax the prescription to Rite Aid in Traverse City, and we would call and have them fax the prescription to the Rite Aid in Brunswick... all this talk occurring while we sat in our car in the Brunswick Rite Aid parking lot. They said they would let us know in a while.
Waiting for the callback, we killed some time by asking random people where we could buy a pelican. Finally at a Target store, I sheepishly asked a cashier, "Ma'am, where can I buy a CEEment pelican?" (Later, I would learn that Sue, who was having a hard time NOT peeing herself as it was, came very close when she heard the "CEEment" come out of my mouth. I told her I was just trying to relate to the natives.) The cashier studied me for a few silent seconds, and when I explained that I was looking for a CEEment lawn sculpture, her brain light came on. "Oh yeah, one of those things," she said. She didn't know, but she would ask the store manager who was organizing shopping carts a good thirty yards away. I figured she would ask the manager to come over to help, but instead she yelled across the store, "Juanita! These people want a pelican! Where can they buy a pelican?"
Juanita yelled back, "A WHAT?!?!"
The cashier yelled back, "A pelican, a CEEment pelican, you know, like you put in your yard."
At this point, I figured every customer in Target was pondering where the hell a person could purchase cement lawn ornaments in Brunswick. But Juanita took full charge and yelled from in great volume and from a great distance that you go down the I-95 spur, then take a right at the light, then two more lights, then take a left across from the Nissan dealer, and there you are.
Sue again called her doctor's office, this time from the Target parking lot, who then informed her that they refused to write her a prescription for her bladder problem, that she would have to see a doctor in Brunswick, come hell or high water, like it or lump it, and while you're at it, don't call us again.
Because of this, I recalled right then the name of an old Frank Zappa album, "Weasels Ripped My Flesh." Weasels certainly were ripping the day apart in a bloody, fleshy mess! As much as we might scream, "FAX the damn prescription, you bastards!", the more they wouldn't.
After a minute of spewing some cuss words, we calmed down and set out. With the help of a receptionist at a chiropractic office, we found our way to an urgent care clinic. And while Sue waited for a doctor, I ventured forth to pursue a pelican, per the shouted directions from Juanita.
I took my I-95 spur, took my traffic lights, found no Nissan dealer but found a Honda dealer, took my left, and wound up at a city cemetery. There were plenty of cement sculptures around, mostly Jesuses and Marys, but none of them were for sale, and none of them were pelicans. So I aimlessly drove the asphalt streets of Brunswick, lonely as a cloud, until I came upon a traffic light into a Home Depot, with a Home Depot Garden Center of Hope, I hoped.
The guy in his orange Home Depot apron, "Wayne" on his nametag, couldn't have been nicer. I told him what I was looking for and he dropped everything, actually looked up, rubbed his chin whiskers, and pondered. He was the vision of pondering. "I can see it in my head," he said. "I pass it every day, a great big fenced-in yard with with all these concrete statues. But where is that? I drive down from the overpass every day and I can see it from above on the left. But where is that? How do you get there from here?" He finally seized on the solution and gave some clear directions which involved only three nearby traffic lights.
As I was winding my way out through the crowd, Wayne hailed me from quite a distance away. I figured he wanted to amend the directions somehow, but when I walked up to him he said with a grin, "Do you want to hear my joke about a penguin?" All these needy customers milling around, and laid-back employee Wayne wants to tell me a goddamn joke!
So he told me this story about a penguin whose car breaks down, and while the penguin's waiting for it to get fixed, he walks over to a nearby ice cream shop to wait, (he was a penguin, after all) and in an hour returns to the garage. The mechanic walks up to the penguin and says, "Man, looks like you blew a seal." The penguin replies, as he's wiping his chin, "No, that's just vanilla frozen yogurt."
A pretty good joke, I thought. But here's an interesting thing about Wayne's telling: When the mechanic recommended that the penguin wait in a nearby ice cream shop, the penguin told the mechanic that he was allergic to ice cream. The mechanic pointed out that the shop also served frozen yogurt, which the penguin was okay with. I've wondered, why the embellishment? Does it really advance the story by bringing in an irrelevent fact? Was Wayne just trying to deepen the realism by saying the penguin was allergic to ice cream? If so, who would believe that a penguin might be allergic to ice cream? I mean, penguins and ice cream bars are so synonymous.
What I'm wondering is this: Why do so many storytellers get lost in tangents? Just get to the point, for godssake.
Wayne's directions were spot on, and within minutes I pulled into one of those concrete statuary businesses that sell all manner of earthly species and inspirational objects. There must have been an acre of CEEment statues. My favorite was a laughing Buddha, but I had come for a bird and, by God, I would leave with one. The proprietor in her sweet Georgia drawl walked up and greeted me as I perused a throng of Jesuses.
"May I help you?"
To which I replied, "Yes, ma'am. Do you by chance sell CEEment statues?"
This old wrinkled woman threw back her head and howled at the gods. She was very happy with me, indeed. If you can share a bit of irony right off the bat, it makes any interaction with strangers a whole lot of fun. "Well, I reckon I do," she laughed.
Turns out she had a nice selection of various-sized pelicans, all looking quite content behind their boring-poem beaks. I picked out a small-to-medium sized statue for 21 bucks, a fair price for the guardian of the realm, I thought. The Buddha, although adorable, would have to laugh another day.
In the office, the wrinkled woman took my Mastercard and she talked about her "angels", her grandchildren who adorned the office walls in several photographs. I said, "It's clear you don't like 'em much," to which she threw back her head, howled again at the gods, and wished me a safe journey back up north.
When I arrived back at the clinic, Sue was being discharged with a prescription for the antibiotics we had hoped Michigan would give her. A urinary tract infection, sure enough. But the wait wasn't long, the staff there were exceptionally friendly, and I had a small-to-medium sized pelican riding in the back seat. We stopped at Rite-Aide for the medicine, and before we reached the causeway taking us back to Jekyll Island, the antibiotics were coarsing through her veins.
From the top of the bridge south of Brunswick, you are perched atop an enormous expanse, a hundred square miles of salt marsh, a secondary protective buffer lying leeward to the Golden Isles of Georgia. It is a magnificent sight. And from way up there, you can see in the distances squadrons of pelicans in single file as they maneuver for prime position to dive-bomb over peach-colored fish in the shallow waters.
Sue got better almost immediately. She claims it happened when we paid the five dollar entry fee to get back onto the island. I claim it happened the moment the wrinkled woman with the concrete statues swiped my credit card under the laughing eyes of her grandchildren.
A clumsy pelican
glides above
the crystal blue
ocean
Its cream beak
as long
as a sword
but as dull
as
a boring poem.
Its sharp
oak brown eyes
scan the water
searching
for colorful fish.
It dives
into the water
and disappears
under
a crashing wave
Waiting
watching
waiting,
SPLASH!
It shoots up
with a peach fish
in its mouth.
It sways a while
then soars away
into the big
tangerine sun.
This little piece of writing should be required reading for all students everywhere. It describes a miracle just as it happens. Pelicans are dinosaur throwbacks with attitude. Pelicans are the underappreciated soldiers of the oceans' edges. After watching these "swords" dive-bomb into chocolate Jekyll Island waters against that "tangerine sun", I knew it was time. I vowed to carry a pelican back to Michigan. I vowed to plant a concrete pelican to stand sentry over my Michigan yard.
* * *
While vacationing on Jekyll Island a few years back, my wife, Sue, came down with a sudden and convenient urinary tract infection which made a purchase possible. When a thing like a cement pelican comes together with a thing like a bladder infection, it's called a thing in Turkish known as "kismet". And amazingly, the Turkish word for "bladder infection" is "pelikan".
So when there was a lull in Sue's urgent need to pee, we shot off the Island and over the sprawling bridge and causeway to the city of Brunswick, Georgia. Sue got on her cell phone to her doctor's office about her symptoms and reported that she's had these UTIs before, and that all she really needed was for them to prescribe some antibiotics, and to fax the prescription to Rite Aid in Traverse City, and we would call and have them fax the prescription to the Rite Aid in Brunswick... all this talk occurring while we sat in our car in the Brunswick Rite Aid parking lot. They said they would let us know in a while.
Waiting for the callback, we killed some time by asking random people where we could buy a pelican. Finally at a Target store, I sheepishly asked a cashier, "Ma'am, where can I buy a CEEment pelican?" (Later, I would learn that Sue, who was having a hard time NOT peeing herself as it was, came very close when she heard the "CEEment" come out of my mouth. I told her I was just trying to relate to the natives.) The cashier studied me for a few silent seconds, and when I explained that I was looking for a CEEment lawn sculpture, her brain light came on. "Oh yeah, one of those things," she said. She didn't know, but she would ask the store manager who was organizing shopping carts a good thirty yards away. I figured she would ask the manager to come over to help, but instead she yelled across the store, "Juanita! These people want a pelican! Where can they buy a pelican?"
Juanita yelled back, "A WHAT?!?!"
The cashier yelled back, "A pelican, a CEEment pelican, you know, like you put in your yard."
At this point, I figured every customer in Target was pondering where the hell a person could purchase cement lawn ornaments in Brunswick. But Juanita took full charge and yelled from in great volume and from a great distance that you go down the I-95 spur, then take a right at the light, then two more lights, then take a left across from the Nissan dealer, and there you are.
* * *
Sue again called her doctor's office, this time from the Target parking lot, who then informed her that they refused to write her a prescription for her bladder problem, that she would have to see a doctor in Brunswick, come hell or high water, like it or lump it, and while you're at it, don't call us again.
Because of this, I recalled right then the name of an old Frank Zappa album, "Weasels Ripped My Flesh." Weasels certainly were ripping the day apart in a bloody, fleshy mess! As much as we might scream, "FAX the damn prescription, you bastards!", the more they wouldn't.
After a minute of spewing some cuss words, we calmed down and set out. With the help of a receptionist at a chiropractic office, we found our way to an urgent care clinic. And while Sue waited for a doctor, I ventured forth to pursue a pelican, per the shouted directions from Juanita.
I took my I-95 spur, took my traffic lights, found no Nissan dealer but found a Honda dealer, took my left, and wound up at a city cemetery. There were plenty of cement sculptures around, mostly Jesuses and Marys, but none of them were for sale, and none of them were pelicans. So I aimlessly drove the asphalt streets of Brunswick, lonely as a cloud, until I came upon a traffic light into a Home Depot, with a Home Depot Garden Center of Hope, I hoped.
The guy in his orange Home Depot apron, "Wayne" on his nametag, couldn't have been nicer. I told him what I was looking for and he dropped everything, actually looked up, rubbed his chin whiskers, and pondered. He was the vision of pondering. "I can see it in my head," he said. "I pass it every day, a great big fenced-in yard with with all these concrete statues. But where is that? I drive down from the overpass every day and I can see it from above on the left. But where is that? How do you get there from here?" He finally seized on the solution and gave some clear directions which involved only three nearby traffic lights.
As I was winding my way out through the crowd, Wayne hailed me from quite a distance away. I figured he wanted to amend the directions somehow, but when I walked up to him he said with a grin, "Do you want to hear my joke about a penguin?" All these needy customers milling around, and laid-back employee Wayne wants to tell me a goddamn joke!
So he told me this story about a penguin whose car breaks down, and while the penguin's waiting for it to get fixed, he walks over to a nearby ice cream shop to wait, (he was a penguin, after all) and in an hour returns to the garage. The mechanic walks up to the penguin and says, "Man, looks like you blew a seal." The penguin replies, as he's wiping his chin, "No, that's just vanilla frozen yogurt."
A pretty good joke, I thought. But here's an interesting thing about Wayne's telling: When the mechanic recommended that the penguin wait in a nearby ice cream shop, the penguin told the mechanic that he was allergic to ice cream. The mechanic pointed out that the shop also served frozen yogurt, which the penguin was okay with. I've wondered, why the embellishment? Does it really advance the story by bringing in an irrelevent fact? Was Wayne just trying to deepen the realism by saying the penguin was allergic to ice cream? If so, who would believe that a penguin might be allergic to ice cream? I mean, penguins and ice cream bars are so synonymous.
What I'm wondering is this: Why do so many storytellers get lost in tangents? Just get to the point, for godssake.
* * *
Wayne's directions were spot on, and within minutes I pulled into one of those concrete statuary businesses that sell all manner of earthly species and inspirational objects. There must have been an acre of CEEment statues. My favorite was a laughing Buddha, but I had come for a bird and, by God, I would leave with one. The proprietor in her sweet Georgia drawl walked up and greeted me as I perused a throng of Jesuses.
"May I help you?"
To which I replied, "Yes, ma'am. Do you by chance sell CEEment statues?"
This old wrinkled woman threw back her head and howled at the gods. She was very happy with me, indeed. If you can share a bit of irony right off the bat, it makes any interaction with strangers a whole lot of fun. "Well, I reckon I do," she laughed.
Turns out she had a nice selection of various-sized pelicans, all looking quite content behind their boring-poem beaks. I picked out a small-to-medium sized statue for 21 bucks, a fair price for the guardian of the realm, I thought. The Buddha, although adorable, would have to laugh another day.
In the office, the wrinkled woman took my Mastercard and she talked about her "angels", her grandchildren who adorned the office walls in several photographs. I said, "It's clear you don't like 'em much," to which she threw back her head, howled again at the gods, and wished me a safe journey back up north.
When I arrived back at the clinic, Sue was being discharged with a prescription for the antibiotics we had hoped Michigan would give her. A urinary tract infection, sure enough. But the wait wasn't long, the staff there were exceptionally friendly, and I had a small-to-medium sized pelican riding in the back seat. We stopped at Rite-Aide for the medicine, and before we reached the causeway taking us back to Jekyll Island, the antibiotics were coarsing through her veins.
From the top of the bridge south of Brunswick, you are perched atop an enormous expanse, a hundred square miles of salt marsh, a secondary protective buffer lying leeward to the Golden Isles of Georgia. It is a magnificent sight. And from way up there, you can see in the distances squadrons of pelicans in single file as they maneuver for prime position to dive-bomb over peach-colored fish in the shallow waters.
Sue got better almost immediately. She claims it happened when we paid the five dollar entry fee to get back onto the island. I claim it happened the moment the wrinkled woman with the concrete statues swiped my credit card under the laughing eyes of her grandchildren.
OK, now THIS one's my favorite. xo
ReplyDeleteLOVE it!!! You just get better and better!
ReplyDelete...and the rest of the story...I love the rewrite..and a beautiful poem by Olivia..I agree,in my humble opinion, the writing gets better and better,I am hooked.
ReplyDelete