Today, late in the afternoon, my wife and I stopped at Floyd Lamb Park, only a few miles from the Las Vegas Strip. At first view, I was unimpressed. The foliage was pallid green and sometimes brownish; fresh duck poop littered the grassy areas and was smeared helter-skelter on portions of the walkways; and the ponds were a deaden gray. But what was initially drab soon turned delightful. Amidst a throng of ducks, we spied a peacock coquettishly spreading its feathers. My wife crept up to it to get a full monte photo. Around the bend, we marveled at seeing dozens of tiny ducklings nuzzling with their mother hens. One adult alpha male was guarding the crew, while another acted as a sentry a bit further away. We respectfully and wisely kept our distance. Further on, teen-aged ducks frolicked with one another while older ducks indulgently supervised the outing. Near the end of our walk around the park, I heard a black bird chirping away in a high pitched tone. It took a while, but I finally saw it on a limb close to the ground. No other bird responded. Soon the chirp became a deep gurgle that shook the bird’s backside. When that tactic failed to get a reply, the bird emitted beeping sounds that resembled a phone’s busy signal. A few moments later, I heard a faint squeak. Ah, ha! The message finally got through. The erstwhile lonely bird immediately flitted to a distant tree to locate perhaps its mate, a relative, or a like-minded companion. At the park today, an initial minus transformed itself into an A plus. Amen.
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