Those Effing Blue Jays

It has been hot this week—low to mid-nineties with high humidity. I know, for those of you living in Memphis or other summer furnaces, that sounds like a lovely spring day. But for those of us in New England, it’s hot. One of my favorite things to do in the summer—early in the morning before it’s too hot—is to sit on our front steps with coffee, be as still as possible, and watch the birds devour their daily allotment of bird suet about ten feet away. As I was doing this a couple of mornings ago, a squirrel sauntered across the bottom of our steps about three feet away. He looked at me with a “what are you doing here?” glance, then headed toward the feeders in hopes of some leftovers on the ground. He was oblivious to a leaf and twig stuck behind his right ear. Then a good-sized blue-and-white bird flew inches from my head as it swooped toward the food. “I just got buzzed by one of those fucking blue jays,” I told Jeanne when I went inside.

Although Jeanne has been known to drop an f-bomb or two, she is not in favor of indiscriminate profanity. She occasionally cringes when listening to her oldest stepson’s discourse; his go to adjective is “fucking.” F-bombs should be saved for the most appropriate situations, such as responses to Donald Trump’s latest tweet or describing the thirty-first person to cut you off in a given day on the road. One might think that dropping an f-bomb on an innocent bird taking a short cut to the feeder is a waste of an adjective that should be used sparingly, but Jeanne laughed at my description—she knew that I was referring to a story from a friend many years ago that has become iconic in our household.

Rodney Delasanta was one of best teachers and colleagues I ever had the privilege of knowing. One of my mentors when I first arrived at Providence College twenty-two years ago, Rodney was a true Renaissance man—a Chaucer scholar, family man, sports fan (especially the Red Sox), award-winning accordion player (really), and classical music aficionado. The accordion business made him a regular recipient of the latest accordion joke from me. “What is the definition of a gentleman? A man who knows how to play the accordion—and doesn’t.” Once Rodney responded with an even better one: An accordion player is trying to find the location of his latest gig in downtown Manhattan. He parks his station wagon on the street with his accordion in the back, locks it, and sets out on foot to find the address. Upon returning to his vehicle he is crestfallen to find that the back window has been broken—and even more crestfallen to find five more accordions in the back of the station wagon!

Rodney was a proud father and an even prouder grandfather. His wife Frances, and equally proud grandmother, often babysat her three-year-old grandson during the day while his mother, an elementary school teacher, was at work. Frances and her grandson frequently enjoyed sitting on the enclosed back porch, watching many varieties of birds visit the feeders in the back yard. One day a large and aggressive blue jay swooped in for lunch, scattering any number of smaller and less obnoxious birds in every direction. This set off a conversation.

Grandson: Nana, why is that blue and white bird so nasty?

Grandmother: Well, blue jays aren’t very nice birds. They are bossy and pushy and don’t care very much about the other birds.

Grandson: (after some reflection) Those fucking blue jays!

Grandmother: WHAT DID YOU SAY??

Grandson: Those fucking blue jays!

Frances, of course, immediately reported the activities of her innocent but foul-mouthed grandson to his mother when she arrived to retrieve him at the end of the day. Aghast, she explained to Frances that her son must have heard a little too much of her exasperated monologue as she tried to get his snow boots and paraphernalia on that morning when she was running very late. “Out of the mouths of babes,” as they say—it’s tough to tell your kid that he must never use such and such a word when the first time he hears it is coming out of your own mouth.

Rodney loved this story and, as a natural story-teller and ham, always reduced everyone who heard it to uproarious laughter. Rodney passed away a few years ago; at his wake, Jeanne and I met his grandson, now in his teens, for the first time. “Oh, you’re the grandson in the blue jay story!” Jeanne said, and he knew exactly what she was talking about. The story is one example of the wonderful randomness of day-to-day life and a reminder to appreciate the unexpected. The comment from Rodney’s grandson has provided me with yet another go-to phrase to use in my self-talk, a phrase whose meaning is known only to me. Someone is being a self-centered jerk? “Stop being a fucking blue jay,” I think. The baseball team from north of the border just kicked the ass of my beloved Red Sox? “Those fucking Blue Jays.” It’s worth noting, of course, that blue jays are beautiful birds. The vast majority of feathered creatures who visit our feeders are unremarkable—sparrows, wrens, chickadees, and other little birds that biologists sometimes refer to collectively as “little brown jobs.” A blue jay swooping in brings a welcome infusion of color and individuality, even though it is by nature a jerk. I’m reminded of the well-known hymn:

All things bright and beautiful,

All creatures great and small,

All things wise and wonderful,

The Lord God made them all.

Even the fucking blue jays.