(Submitted to and rejected by The New York Times just days before his untimely demise)
America at Risk from Northern Invasions
I consider myself something of a birder—that’s birder,
b-i-r-DER.
Earlier this summer, I was deeply immersed in a study of
blue jays in my back yard. These birds had been around for a while and had
become part of the neighborhood. They were always welcome.
Each day I placed a small pile of peanuts on a platform and
began to notice a distinct behavior when they arrived to eat. Two of the blue jays
eyed their food with their right eye, took the largest peanuts and promptly
flew away. One jay landed rather awkwardly and selected a small one-unit peanut
shell. (He was a bald blue jay—a head feather
affliction causing more damage to his self-image than to his overall health.) From
this experience, recorded with my stopwatch, and replicated several times, I
was about to develop a new hypothesis: “Right-eyed blue jays’ poise and homme
du monde nature likely to increase breeding opportunities by 37.2%.”
That was the gist of it, at any rate. Then in late July, a
flock of unknown blue jays attacked my feeding station. They squawked and
pounced and fought with each other, scaring off everything else in the neighborhood.
I waved them off, sternly told them to return to where they came from. Nothing
helped. From far tougher neighborhoods than mine, possibly confined at one time
by birdcage bars, these birds—raucous, demanding, hostile, unkempt, and
unfriendly--were fixin’ to stay.
My research subjects were never to return. My thoughts of a
juicy grant went poof. I never saw Eugene again. What a disaster!
 |
| Eugene the bald blue jay |
I thought maybe they were just passing through, that in a
week or so they’d be on their way. Instead their numbers only increased, like
an unchecked infection: They must have passed the word along because my poor
juniper drooped like a depressed old man under the families of jays and their
in-laws and a few hangers-on, crossing into the homeland like tourists pouring
over the Sault Ste. Marie. Their squawking for food rang in my ears; the
neighbor’s dog yowled. The police would be called and I’d be held responsible
for these uninvited troublemakers. So I submitted, dumping piles of peanuts on
the feeding station—once a day at first, then twice, then a freaking three
times a day.
Why had this happened? What did I do now? More importantly,
could it be turned into a juicy research grant? Then it hit me: Canada had sent
its blue jays across the border into my neck of the woods, and they weren’t
Canada’s finest—more likely some of its worst. How Canada did it, I don’t
know—possibly a vast provincial conspiracy. But I was pretty sure I was right.
Now I was on the hook.
During my sleepless night, next to the TV showing a good
American movie, The Man in the Gray
Flannel Suit, I lay in bed projecting my peanut costs if the new blue jays chose to stay. I’d be
broke by October.
I turned the channel to my new favorite show, Anna’s and Kristina’s Grocery Bag. Now
here were two wholesome middle-aged American women having fun in the kitchen, setting off
the smoke detector, hiding their dirty pans outside, and pestering passersby to
test their homemade butter. One way or another, they managed an acceptable menu.
Watching her attack an innocent coconut, I was somewhat impressed with Kristina, that is, until I caught something in the closing credits; it
flashed by fast, like tiny disclaimers on lease agreements, but it was
there—one big, bold word: Vancouver.
Had I been tricked again? Was this Phase II of the
conspiracy?
Science requires replication. I checked another one of my
favorite shows, Property Brothers,
with hunky twins Drew and Jonathan Scott. The last time I checked, they were
building a house in Las Vegas. These guys had to be good Americans, promising
to transform ramshackle rats’ nests into shiny new pleasure palaces for anxious
young couples all over the country. I watched the credits swipe by and . . . oh
no! Canadians! They barely had an accent!
I did more research, er, watched more TV and discovered a scold of home improvement, gardening,
cooking and related shows; my camera in hand for documenting the evidence, I
flashed on the closing credits: Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Quebec (the
camera created a white smear on the screen, but I still remember, yes, I
remember). Then it hit me: With little fan fair, the sneaky Canadians had
crossed our border, slowly at first, below the insouciant American
consciousness and hit us where it hits—with shows that cater to our nesting
instincts. There’s literally a grocery bag full of shows now crowding our air waves and, like the blue jays,
making demands on our attention and crowding out other American programming.
They may be sly, but the Canucks are seeping into the American consciousness.
I, for one, don’t think it’s fair. It’s a disaster!
 |
| Scott Walker could do more with better poll numbers |
What to do now? We could try economic sanctions against
Canada. That’d get ole Harper’s attention. We could try some kind of barrier at
the border to keep the Canucks out, maybe even make them pay for part of it.
(Okay, I’m a lousy negotiator.) Clearly, Scott Walker from the Canadian bordering
state of Wisconsin must have had this in mind when he mentioned a northern
wall. He is just one person—and his poll numbers aren’t very good either. Trump
should step in, but he’s busy assaulting the southern border. We need more
voices with the media’s help to galvanize public opinion. CNN, for starters,
could display a Breaking News banner, screaming, “By Air and by Airwaves,
Canadian Incursion Under Way: No one notices.” CNN can reinforce the sense of
urgency with a crawler: “Ratings at risk. Wake up, PEOPLE! Wolf still needs to
eat.”
As for me, the birds have already come home to roost, so to
speak.
The other night, exhausted and unnerved, I fell into a
fitful sleep and found my kitchen transformed into a cooking show set.
Cookbooks floated in the air around me, all with angry left-eyed blue jays on
their covers. The stove turned itself on; songbirds of every kind were lined
up, their wings tied behind their backs, little black hoods over their heads,
slowly marching up a plank toward the boiling oil. I cried out a voiceless
scream, then was jerked to one side by a Property Brother (Drew or Jon, I can
never tell them apart). The other brother sledge hammered a gaping hole in the
floor and together they hurled me into a black void, tumbling and spiraling,
the light growing dim above me, falling breathlessly, blue jays pecking at my
toes, grocery bags whizzing by, full of peanuts, spilling out, pelting me in
the face, and the blue jays multiplying by the hundreds, and now golden sinew
flashing by like mortar shells, exploding into shards of golden mirrors,
catching the grocery bags on fire, choking me, burning my eyes, my throat closing—oh,
this isn’t going to end well—and as I’m passing out, a voice from a far-away
loud speaker announces, “This PRO-cess ends in a-BOOT one second, eh.”
Canada is giving me nightmares. I may never sleep again. My
accent is beginning to change. I have this unexplainable desire to be more
polite. I want to plant more maple trees. I want to go camping—I never go
camping! It’s a disaster, I’m telling you, a
real disast-ah.
Editor's Note: Except for this blog, this silly essay will never see the light of day. We're taking steps to back up that guarantee.
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