FEEL THE TERN

To everything, tern, tern, tern.
There is a season, tern, tern, tern.
And a time to every purpose under heaven.

Bernie Sanders was giving a speech in Portland, Oregon last week when a little bird decided to ‪#feelthebern‬. It landed onstage, flew off and returned, perching itself on the podium. The crowd roared with exuberant excitement! It was seen as some sort of presidential prediction - an omen of good things to come. Perhaps it was, because I have an experience; a first-hand account of how birds can alter the course of human history. Sometimes good, other times…

Many years ago, in the 1970s, I spent a lot of time on Long Beach Island in New Jersey. Beach Haven, in particular. My old boss, Jack Little, the best boss in the world, owned a Weiner King restaurant there (open from Memorial Day through Labor Day) and I’d drive ‘down the shore’ once a week to relieve the managers; to give them a day off. I don’t know if that was the case or not on this particular day. I do know that I wasn’t working and I met a beautiful young girl. We hit it off right away and I could sense a budding relationship blossom as the intensity began to build. I knew she felt it, too. It was destiny… Or so I thought.

I don’t think we had been conversing all that long when we went into an ice cream shop and got a couple of cones. We went back outside and sat on a sidewalk bench, close together. I was on her right. At this point in my life, I was physically coordinated enough to be able to hold a soft-serve cone in one hand, licking away, while my other arm slowly inched its way around her shoulders. Life was feeling very good. Good food. Good conversation. Good looking girl.

Good thing I was wearing shorts, too. As my enthusiasm toward our fledgling friendship continued to grow, SPLAT! A huge gob of something even warmer landed on top of my left thigh. It was a huge deposit of BIRD CRAP! It missed her, fortunately, but it wiped the mood right out of us. She began to laugh. The kind of laugh you know isn’t in your favor. It must have been the biggest seabird ever!

“I’ll go get napkins,” she said, giggling all the way inside the store, only to return moments later with lots and lots of wet and dry paper towels. “OK, I’ve gotta go.”

“No!” I begged, but it was too late. A ‘tern’ of events and off she went. The damage was done and I was left with a giant mess to clean. There was no way I could have chased after her - poop running down my leg.

Who knows what would have happened that day, but it’s safe to say a solitary bird changed my fate as I watched her disappear around the corner, most likely electing to search for another fun candidate to party with.