Sixty Seven Crows In A Tree

Sixty Seven Crows In A Tree



In the orange haze of sodium vapor lights that sit on the Veterans Bridge overhead and shine down to S. Canal Street where I live, sit many empty lots. Lots that once had houses and children, laughter and tears stand two remaining trees. I do not know what species or their heritage, only that they fill the end lot that is devoid of almost everything but space. They are surrounded by concrete barriers from the company who now owns most of the land on this speck of the North Shore of Pittsburgh. It is almost as though they are in prison themselves. Beneath the trees is the remainder of a fence that surrounded them. Now standing in disrepair and grinning at me like an Appalachian hillbilly. Only a few of the original stakes remain in place. The desolation of my street is almost complete. There are but three houses and three businesses left on S. Canal Street and a few more holdouts on the remaining streets that run both parallel and perpendicular to S. Canal.



S. Canal is hardly quiet in its desolation. The trains of the NSW run past my house on a regular basis. I can sit in my study on the second floor and watch them go by less than fifty feet away. Thankfully they trundle on slowly and rarely blast the horn as they pass. In warm weather with windows open I sometimes wave at the engineers on the trains, sometimes they smile and wave back, sometimes not. At night I can feel the house vibrate as they pass by with there heavy loads. The ga-da-da-da-da-da sound of Jake brakes from the eighteen wheelers as they descend the off ramp onto route 28 drones on throughout the warm summer nights making it hard for me to sleep sometimes. The roar of crotch rocket motorbikes fill the summer air as young men on their steeds of death enjoy racing each other on the long straightaway of the Veteran’s Bridge on I-579 at the expense of good sense. A number of them have been killed or seriously injured speeding onto the bridge heading off of route 28 into the city. It seems that there is a tight turn that is of the decreasing radius design that also canters down towards the guardrail rather than up. The laws of physics, speed, inertia, mass and momentum will have their way in this situation. A number of riders have managed to defy these laws only to be launched over the railing and free fall about 45 feet to meet their maker or a painful ride in an ambulance to Allegheny General Hospital a few blocks away. Sometimes the cold winter has its advantages, double paned windows closed tight and the drapes and curtains drawn reduce the noise level to almost acceptable levels. The motorbikes are put away for a few months as the riders finally show a bit of good sense.



Over the weekend we had the threat of a snowstorm coming in and assaulting the area. Oh that’s what they called it all right, an assault. Straight out of the Severe Weather News or Storm Team 11 or some other god awful weather report that seems to be the rage today. Seems it just can’t snow anymore it has to be something way beyond that, something more deep, dark, sinister and fearful.



I arrived home from running errands along with Dyson my trusted beagle dog that afternoon. We had planned to hunker down that afternoon, wait out the storm and watch Talladega Nights. This movie is Dyson’s favorite, he can lip synch all of the parts and especially loves the part where Ricky Bobby’s family gathers around for Thanksgiving dinner to say grace.



As we exited the van Dyson headed to the side of the house on his leash to the empty lot next door to relieve himself. It was then that I noticed the large flock of black crows that were on the ground in the adjoining lot behind my house. They were systematically and quietly pecking on the ground patrolling the whole area not unlike soldiers looking for landmines. In hushed tones they communicated to each other not in the normal boisterous, loud ka-caws that I was used to hearing. I watched as they went about their business pecking away. I was surrounded by a thin veil of concern as to why these birds had come to my neighborhood but I was able to dismiss it with the simple hope that perhaps these mighty crows had found a field full of the dreaded stinkbugs that had invaded us last year.



The first few (actually a dozen or two) stinkbugs that I had found in my house were fortunate. I caught them and released them back into the wild. This was in spite of the fact that they are really odd looking little creatures and really slow and apparently dumb as a bag of hammers. After that they pushed me over the edge and I became a serial killer of stinkbugs. I hated waking up and finding one in bed with me. There were times when I was on a drunken spree and woke up in bed with something that I was repulsed by but those situations never provided the horror and disgust of waking up with a stinkbug on your top sheet. Thank god the little bastards never smiled at me and batted their eyelashes at me. They drove me to this murderous spree, honestly they did. Open the medicine cabinet and there’s a damn stinkbug taking my fish oil capsules. Open a drawer and pull out a tee shirt and there’s two of the little bastards having a picnic on my Van Halen Tee.

“Ain’t gonna happen again little dudes, you are dead with a capital D”. “Squish squish, nice knowing your little asses”, “Didn’t your friends that I released tell you to stay away, guess not”? “Oh well, you stink, but you are dead, never to stink again” I remember chortling as I killed hundreds of them. I became desensitized and it became easy to kill them. Perhaps it has something to do with my Teutonic heritage.





The odd thing (and there are a number of them) about this scenario was just seeing crows in the city. I cannot recall the last time I saw one or two lest a whole flock of them in an urban area. I felt it odd to say the least. Not that I have anything against crows mind you but it was a bit unsettling to me. It was probably because I did not understand the Native American beliefs about the Raven but was more attuned to the Celtic beliefs about Crows. Celts believe that the Crow was associated with battles and war. The symbolic meaning of the Raven in Native American Indian lore describes the raven as a creature of metamorphosis, and symbolizes change/transformation.



To be visited by a raven is considered a good thing in most cases. To be visited by a flock means a lot of change is coming my way. I walked Dyson into the house put some of the groceries away that I had bought and headed upstairs to load Talladega Nights into the DVD player for Dyson. He lacking an opposable digit on his paw (unlike I), struggles to put a DVD in the player by himself. He also gets angry if I laugh at him when he tries to do so. Dyson also lacks patience about such matters.



As I got to the landing on the stairs I looked out the window and down on the flock of crows in the adjoining lot. I started to count the total number of crows on the ground but they made it difficult. Perhaps they did not want to be inventoried. I stood quietly and continued my best to count them. Sixty seven was the final number I came up with, sixty seven. As a boy growing up in rural Dauphin County in Eastern Pennsylvania I had seen flocks of hundreds if not thousands of crows circling the freshly harvested cornfields in the fall mornings on my way to school, the sky black with their large wings and bodies. I remember being told that crows were smart and that if a flock of crows flew overhead and I stood as though I had a shotgun in my arms and pointed it at the flock that they would fly away in another direction. I tried this on many occasions in my youth and found it to be true.





It is four days later and Dyson and I are arriving home from the part time job that I have. It is sixteen degrees outside with a wind chill factor of about zero. There is about three inches of snow on the ground that is pretty in its own way. I dislike the cold, it makes me hurt and ache all over. It makes me relive every impact and collision that I had as a child or a young man on the field of sport or the stage of stupidity. Those little nagging bumps and bruises live to fight another day. The eighteen stainless pins, screws and plates that inhabit my left ankle have their way with me on a daily basis. As Dyson and I reach the end of the house where he usually attends to his business I hear and odd sound and look to my left at one of the two remaining trees that inhabit the near empty lot next door. The tree is filled with many things that are dark and moving about from branch to branch. It is unclear exactly what is in the tree for they are speaking in hushed tones. The orange sodium vapor lamps on the bridge overhead that shine so brightly in the summer night struggle to illuminate the leaf filled tree below through the blowing December snow. I stare and finally realize it is the flock of crows that had been here four days ago. They are hopping from branch to branch and whispering their secrets to each other in hushed tones. The wind dies down for a few minutes, their silhouettes now visible in the orange light that now makes the brown leaves of the tree glow warmly on this cold winter night. I slowly start to count and the number comes again to sixty seven.



Perhaps they are telling me something, perhaps sixty seven has some meaning for me on a personal level. Have brother crow and his friends come to tell me that I will live to be sixty seven? I am sixty years old now and at times feel like I am twenty. In other ways I feel like I am ninety. If sixty seven is the number that is OK. If sooner what can I do? If longer it’s a bonus.



Their meaning and message remain a mystery to me. Perhaps it means nothing. Perhaps it is just a flock of crows being a flock of crows looking for a safe haven on a cold winter’s night. Perhaps it is an old man looking for answers to a life that still remains a mystery in many ways.