My walk to the gym takes me by San Pablo Park in Berkeley. The park takes up a city block. It features two baseball diamonds and a field suitable for all manner of sports including soccer, flag football and whatever you call that competitive frisbee game. There are also tennis courts and a tot lot. There’s room aplenty for picnics and barbecues and I’ve been to a few birthday parties for wee ones there. It’s a historic site having hosted Negro League baseball games some ninety years ago. Many prominent future tennis and baseball stars got their starts at San Pablo Park.
The last two winters the main grass area of the park has been fenced off and unavailable for the public during the teeth of winter (aka the rainy season) for “renovation.” I think they just want to keep people off it. When I was a youth (and dinosaurs roamed the Earth) parks were available year ‘round. By the time I started coaching soccer, fields were given more protection that a rare Ming vase. If there’d been a touch of rain the night before, fields were closed the next day. When I was a kid we literally played in the pouring rain.
As I was saying before I interrupted myself, the field is fenced off. It is thus currently occupied by ducks. Lots of them. There is apparently much for them to feast on. Yesterday as I neared the park I noted a flock of turkeys, well, seven of them, I don’t know if that qualifies as a flock. One can also refer to them as a rafter of turkeys, though who does? In any event there were at least seven gobblers walking in the direction of the park. They were all rather large, not a child among them. It is not unusual to see turkeys in Berkeley and we often find them in front of our abode. There are usually one to four of them with two or more appearing to be youngsters. So to see seven adults was unusual. What was also unusual was what they did. They halted their march, stood outside the fence and commenced to make a racket while directing their attention at the ducks.
The ducks in turn initially looked perplexed. What were these fellow winged creatures and why all the noise? The ducks started backing away although the fence meant that they were safe from a turkey attack. All the while the ducks kept close watch of the turkeys perhaps out of a mixture of curiosity and concern.
I eventually discerned that (as the cops say in moving pictures) there was nothing to see here and I was better off moving along.
Living in a large urban area one does not often see wild animals in confrontation. We’re well-used to dog-squirrel confrontations and cats stalking birds but that’s pretty much the extent of it. And that’s the extent of my story. From there I went to the gym where I did the usual. Stretches, calf raises, planks, push-ups, sit-ups, lat pull-downs, tricep raises, arm curls, twenty minutes on the stair master, ten minutes on the elliptical, cool down stretches and Bob’s your uncle.
I’ve started taking my post work-out showers at home, which I did yesterday. Then it was time for a beer (of the non-alcoholic variety) and fish jerky while listening to carols and boring my wife by relating the story above. We watched the 1984 A Christmas Carol starring George C Scott. I quite like it and Scott is a very good Scrooge though Alistair Sim still reigns supreme for me.
After work today I’m off for a week to celebrate the yule, I’m all about it. Favorite time of year and all that.
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