Romancing Birds and Gold Diggers

It is pouring raining outside, which I suppose is appropriate, since April is known for having showers. Being the young whippersnapper living between two retirees I have ordained myself the Protector of Newspapers when it rains. So, this morning, in the rain I darted to each house and rescued the newspaper to get it on their carports out of the rain.

So, now that I got my good deed out of the way, now I need to think of a way to do a good April Fool on somebody, maybe put on a doctor’s white smock and visit each patient at the hospital and tell him/her they are doing much better and go ahead an pack up and call their families to come and get them.

Speaking of doctors, I waited in the waiting room of a doctor’s office yesterday while my wife had a visit. I always enjoy this doctors’ waiting room because there is a glass bird cage. I think it is well vented, but there may be health issues if they were in a cage kicking their seed out or flinging their little turds out or something.

I think I read someplace that more and more doctor offices are getting aquariums and bird cages. It is suppose to take the tension from the doctor’s visit.

The birds are two little chickadee looking things, but they have red peckers (not what you think), a yellow mask, red breast or plumage, and then a greenish gray sports coat on.

The last time I was there one of the little birds was trying to woo the other one. It would sing to it and chirp at it. And the other little bird would chirp back, like “Come on, Big Boy.” But each time the one that would do most the chirping hop on the same perch bar as the other one, the other one would hop someplace else. And the process would start over… it would sing some more to it, and finally get enough nerve to hop up to it, and again, bird #2 would jump to another perch. How long can this go on?

On this visit, I made sure I got a good seat close to the cage to observe their courtship again. But, bird #1 must have got the message. Neither bird move from their selected perches the whole time I was there.

Maybe bird #2 told bird #1 that she wouldn’t have a fling with him if he was the last bird on earth. And having his ego shot down he is just patiently waiting for her to change her mind – she’ll come around…. And in the mean time he is artfully keeping up a nice polite chirping conversation, as to say, “No hard feelings, there are plenty other fish in the sea, I mean birds in the tree… whatever.”

We went to a new restaurant last night that we had a coupon for. It was called Up The Creek, and it is a franchise that mostly serves fish. We never heard of them before. I ordered the Cajun shrimp and gumbo and it was pretty good. Anna ordered catfish and it was plentiful. She carried enough home for both of us to have catfish for lunch today.

The restaurant was a 45 minute wait. It is located in nearby Woodstock, Georgia, right on my g-g-g grandfather Eugene Hargraves Tyson’s property. Eugene was also known as Job Tyson. That is because his parents died and his sister Winston Tyson adopted him and change his name from Job to Eugene Hargraves. The reason he was named Job is that their father was named Job.

The reason she took that name away from him is unclear but I suspect it was because the father Job was considered by some a traitor in the Revolutionary War. Which might have been an unfair assumption.

Job played a immature practical joke on the British troops. He was to be hanged, but Lord Cornwallis pardoned him, stating that Job was just a teenager doing a childish immature prank.

The fact that General or Lord Cornwallis pardoned him was enough to caused eyebrows to raise and for him to be considered a traitor. He had to get two or three of his brothers who fought honorably state that he was not a traitor and did some patriotic acts.

So, why did she change Job Jr’s name to Eugene Hargraves? The only Hargraves I found was in their father’s militia – so, did she name her brother after him?

Eugene Hargraves moved to the area we were at last night about 1834, after winning a parcel of land in the Cherokee Land Lottery. He was a gold miner. He mined for gold, about a 1000 feet away from where we sat on the front porch of Up The Creek on Kellogg Creek.

Winston by the way was a school teacher. The family story is that she went to Col Nathan Greene’s plantation (Mulberry Plantation) outside of Savannah and applied for a job teaching the children. She got the job. However, after she received it, another person showed up to apply for the same job (no telephones or emails) and found the position had already been filled by Winston. That person’s name was Eli Whitley. Before journeying back he was invited to visit a few days, and while there, invented the Cotton Gin, with Mrs. Greene's help and her donation of her comb.

Walla!