The Old Crow

Please click on the title for a reading aloud by the author.)

On my regular hikes to the mailbox I am constantly on the lookout for various flotsam and jetsam, the shinier the better. It’s also a karmic thing. For a while nails and screws were frequently getting in the tires of my car so I figure if I’m picking up these nasty puncturing bits, a) there will be fewer around for anyone including me to get into trouble with, and b) if there is one in the way, somehow it and my tires will avoid each other. I hope.

The shiny things call out but silently. If they could only tell their stories. The lonely spark plug, a platinum type with dual electrodes, made in Germany and still functional. What car did it come from and how many sparks did it spark to what destinations? Maybe it helped take a family to Carlsbad Caverns, or a mom to the store for milk and a jar of peanut butter. And it’s a part not likely to pop out of an engine on it’s own, so how and why did it end up on the road?

Three lug nuts. Not one, or five, but three. The lever tool with the notched cam shaped end, for the life of me I can’t figure out what it’s used for.

My prize is a set of measuring spoons. It was a crisp and sunny winter day and I had walked a good mile beyond the mail boxes for the exercise. Returning, the roadside embankment with a southern exposure was free of snow. Some highly reflective thing, an intense little glint peeping out from the weeds caught my attention. I circled around. The cool white color of stainless steel said “high quality” to the old crow. I stopped and peered in, and there was a measuring spoon. I hopped over the ditch and picked it up, and scattered around was another, and another… and the little snap ring, opened, to hold them together.

It’s just not every day a set of high quality measuring spoons finds it’s way to the side of the road. Very odd. Maybe someone set them on the roof of the car on the way to cooking class?... or they were part of a drug dealer’s tool kit and got jettisoned in the heat of a chase by the law?

Scraping off most of the dirt and feeling quite pleased with my booty, I slipped them into my pocket. Back at the house, I gave them a good washing and put them into service. Every time I look at them I wonder.

Gordon Bunker