It's A Small Matter

So, I've been doing better and have recovered somewhat from my high fever / sore throat / aches and pains episode and when we got home from work last night, Luann went to check the mail. Unfortunately, there was a creepy-crawly critter in the box when she opened it and she called me over to extract it. Since the mailbox can be fully opened up with a key, I asked Luann to bring the key from in the house and I would open it up and take care of the critter.

A couple of minutes after she walked into the house, I heard a high-pitched, chirpy-screechy kind of sound and looked up just in time to see that a hawk was flying about 6 feet up at the middle of the intersection and had just grabbed some kind of a small bluebird in mid-flight with one talon. This could be considered to be something of an amazing thing to see or experience, but since the hawk was now flying towards me with this micro-sized banshee clutched in it's one talon, I figured that things probably weren't quite so amazing to the little blue fella whom seemed like he was going to end up as hawk food this evening.

As this was passing through my head, the hawk looked to be having trouble maintaining hold onto his prey because he quickly lost altitude while he tried to get his other foot on the bluebird. At this point, the hawk was about 10 feet away from me and closing, so I made a quick decision as I stepped out into the street, waved my arms and shouted "Hey!". This produced the desired result, as it caused the hawk to 'flinch' away from me and drop the still screeching bluebird on the grass across the street from where I was standing.

To be honest though, the hawk didn't seem to be all that concerned with me because he landed in a tree above and to one side of where he dropped the bluebird. In other words, he might have dropped his dinner, but he wasn't going to give it up that easy! Well, he didn't realize who he was dealing with, because I stalked over to the tree right up underneath the hawk, pointed at him and yelled; "Get outta here!" Now, I didn't believe at all that this hawk had any idea what I said, but he seemed to get the point as he immediately lit out of the tree and flew down the block with alacrity.

With the threat gone, I turned my attention to the bluebird who had somehow ended up wedged into the bottom of the chain-link fence in the yard across the street. Somewhere in the middle of this, Luann had come walking up and was wondering what I was doing, figiting at the bottom of the neighbor's fence and all you can hear is this poor little bluebird screaming for his life, unaware that I was just trying to help him to live for yet another day. After a little poking and prodding, I was able to work him through the fence and as soon as he realized he was free, he instantly quieted down and immediately shot away from the fence.

When I turned around, there was Luann asking what I was doing.


Now, this story has a few emotional twists and turns in it and I do wonder if I shouldn't have meddled in the affairs of the avian world, but this situation brought to mind a story I had heard a while back...


It seems that an old man was walking along the beach one morning when he came across a little boy picking up starfish and tossing them back into the sea. When they came within speaking distance, the old man asked the little boy why he was throwing the starfish back into the water, to which the boy replied; "I'm saving them".

The old man scoffed and said; "There are literally thousands of starfish washed ashore along this beach. How can you possibly believe that what you are doing could mean anything?"

The little boy bent over, picked up yet another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the sea, then he said; "To that one, what I'm doing means alot!"

Many times, it's not the big things that we do in life that matters. More often than not, it's the action of doing something for others, even if it doesn't seem like such a big deal, that means so much to so many.