The man with the parrot

I have loved getting acclimated to East Texas.

Since IKE, there has been the constant smell of pine in the air. The temperatures have been increasingly cool and my senses tell me that I am in the mountains. I love the outdoors here. They are indescribable.

So imagine my surprise when I was headed to town and looked to my right to notice a man walking away from me toward his house with a bag in one hand and a parrot on his shoulder. I looked for the limp, but there was none. Just an old bearded man with a very large green and red parrot on his right shoulder.

Where I work, occasionally, one of the offenders tell us there are birds in their cell, but more than likely if they are serious they are batty. But there he was or she was. I have never been good at telling the sex of a bird--well for that matter most everything else as well even to the upright species known as man/woman.

I thought about my mountain experiences where very interesting people flock to the hills away from the conventions and expectations of the rest of society.

So, to the senses of the mountains: the pines gently swaying in the wind; the wind ripe with the smell of pine smoke; the cool evenings that speak of mountain air and mountain temperatures; I can add the eccentric few who keep us ever watchful for the different and the odd.