Sifting Through the Past

This post is not really about birding. It is about sifting through decades of greetings cards sent mainly for Christmas, birthdays and a wedding anniversary of many years ago. Many of the cards have birds on them, reflecting my interest in birding.

Around the time of my last birthday I decided to rearrange a closet in our home office. I pulled out garbage bags full of newspaper clippings and a box filled with cards. I don't know why I kept any of this for so long. I tried once before to shred the cards but seeing ones from people no longer alive stopped me. It was like they were dying again. So I put the box back in the closet.

Moose holiday card sent from New Hampshire.
(Margo D. Beller)

This time I'm trying a different way. I am tossing cards that have no personal or otherwise identifying messages into a trash bag and shredding the envelopes, basically anything with personal information.

It is taking a long time. As I do it I think of how we used to communicate with each other. Friends and relatives would go to a store, pick a card with the receiver in mind, and put it in the mail. Many of these cards are funny. Some are sentimental. I found a couple sent in different years from a former landlady and a former boss, both no longer alive.  All these cards are full of love in some way or another.

Some cards I am keeping, such as birthday and Valentine cards from my husband, or some cards from departed friends as a way of remembering them.

As I work I see old cards from people who have moved away. I see old cards from people now no longer talking to me. I see old cards from people I don't hear from all year except at Christmas. I see old cards from people who now are using e-card companies or sending messages to my Facebook feed. I have cards that included pictures of my friends' children, who are now grown adults. Few send Christmas letters telling me what they are up to anymore. 

Everyone seems to be busier than when they were younger. Sending a message over email or text or Facebook is much easier, takes much less time, is cheaper and avoids the United States Postal Service, which is always overwhelmed at holiday time.

Holiday letters saying what the sender or his/her family has been up to have long been a thing of the past. I stopped doing that some time ago because except for certain illnesses I didn't have much to say. I don't have the most interesting life, and people already know about my adventures in birding from this blog. I now send out many fewer Season's Greetings cards than I used to. Some people who used to send me cards have stopped doing so, cutting me from their mailing list.

Greeting cards have become an endangered species.

I am slowly making my way to the bottom of the box and I'll have a lot of envelopes to shred. The garbage bag is filling. This task is taking much longer than expected and I will have to continue tomorrow. In a way I am glad to be getting less paper from people. As I get older I know I should start de-cluttering decades of stuff in my house. This one closet is a small start. Next will be decades of clippings from my years in journalism. 

Birthday card (Margo D. Beller)

As I dump these cards I am saddened to think of those who are gone, either through death or something my husband or I may have said, or who use the internet because it is easy to do and takes only a microsecond of their time. I miss the care and effort people put into their cards. 

The human element.

We are in a dehumanizing world. Every day we see things in the news that batters our psyches. In this techno-centric world, getting a holiday card is a physical reminder of connections between us and our friends and family. I miss my departed friends and relatives. I miss those family and friends who do not live close to us. Nowadays I'm glad just to get electronic birthday greetings. 

But it's just not the same.

Where Are the Vultures?

Gloomy days bring gloomy thoughts, especially around the time of the year-end holidays. Where did the months go?

In recent weeks many of my friends have lost loved ones. As I write the first day of winter officially begins around 6 pm ET. It's dark and cold at 5 pm. For a variety of reasons we can't visit our families for the holidays, although we will be dining with a good friend nearby. It has been weeks since we've had a day that started sunny and stayed that way. A huge mid-week storm is expected, which will test our new roof and deer fencing.

Holiday card montage by Margo D. Beller

Last year around this time I wrote a post for another blog about how many of my friends contact me, and I them, once a year through holiday cards. This year I notice we didn't get cards from some of those friends, and I wonder if all this time they've been sending us cards only because we sent them cards first. We only had 20 cards on hand to send out this year. One friend sent us an ecard and three sent us cards before we sent out ours. The vast majority have not bothered but we have sent the cards to them.

Why is that? Do they dislike us now? Are they too used to putting all their news on Facebook? Have they reached that age where they want to simplify, simplify? Or are they just waiting to hear from us to see if we are worth the effort to go out, buy a card, write a note, sign it, address an envelope, seal it and put on a stamp?

One gloomy thought among many.

Here's another: Where are the roosting vultures?

From 2012 into 2013, on my early morning walks, I would see them in a small, sunny meadow on the old Greystone property trying to warm up before flying off to seek a meal. Then came last winter's heavy and almost continual snows. It was hard and sometimes dangerous to walk from my house to this part of the property (thank goodness sidewalks have been put in along the main road within the last year) and so I avoided this area all winter.

Turkey vulture (R.E. Berg-Andersson)

Now I wonder if the vultures did, too.

When the grass grows long the vultures don't hang out in the field. They want to see what's coming. (Canada geese do that, too, which may be why the grass is not mowed.) I would find a few turkey or black vultures in trees along the road, soaking up the sun on a dewy, cool morning. I was expecting the vultures to come back to the field once the grass was mowed but that hasn't happened.

Why? I have my theories, all of which involve  distruction of habitat.

1. There are fewer dead deer to feed them.

2. The state of New Jersey (which holds this parcel while my home county holds most of the now-parkland around it) waited too long to mow.

3. Last year's snow forced the vultures to other areas they like better.

4. The many people using what was once a mental institution and is now a county park made it too noisy (there is a playground, ball fields and cross-country track) and uncomfortable for the raptors to hang around.

5. Nearby residents who didn't want vultures warming themselves on their roofs on cold mornings took measures - either on their own or with state help - to force them off.

Black vulture (R.E. Berg-Andersson)

Vultures are far from endangered and even at Greystone they aren't completely gone. Every so often a couple of black vultures or a turkey vulture will suddenly rise from the Greystone property beyond my neighbors' houses. It's possible they are just roosting in other sunny areas, rising from the still-green hemlocks where they sleep to get a little protection from the elements. Or I'm not looking around at the right times.

But I miss seeing all those vultures running around the field in the sun like chickens, or sitting in trees in groups, their wings spread to dry and warm in the rising sun. Vultures are ugly up close and their need for dead animals to eat and survive disgusts many.

But aloft these big birds soar majestically and I enjoy watching them. Their absence adds to my winter gloom.