An anecdote

I would like to share today a memory from a few years ago which I like to think is quite relevant to the state of today's society.

In middle school, we had recess on a big turf soccer field surrounded by a track. The track was enclosed by a ring of real, not entirely tamed grass. On the left, in front of the school, was a strip of pavement of the sort people play wallball on. On the right was a second soccer field, which we were forbidden to enter because the high schoolers sometimes had gym there, and between the big soccer field and the school was a small playground (the kind that doesn't even have a swing set) which only a small minority of the student population used regularly. Directly in front of all this was the soccer field, and the track, and the ring of quaintly wild grass, and beyond that, on the far side of the track and the field, the real grass sloped up towards a tall chain link fence, which protected the children from the quiet row of residential houses which lay behind it (or vice versa).

It was in that direction I was generally looking--as it makes sense to do, when one is walking out the door having just finished their lunch--when I saw something. It was barely a flicker, and it would have seemed unlikely to me that it was anything substantial--yet I knew I had seen some sort of movement. I immediately took off running, feet pounding against the pavement, then grass, then rubber track and turf and rubber track and grass again, uphill this time, until I reached the fence, panting, and I saw that I was right in hurrying over.

Now, it's entirely possible that I had simply seen the leaves rustling in the wind, which had alerted me coincidentally to the thing which I gawked at presently, but I was and am very proud of my good eyesight, and I like to think I saw from almost 80 yards what I saw from just several feet: a falcon, peregrine, as I'm fond of remembering it (though I have never known the slightest thing about the identification of birds of prey), pulling the entrails free from a small, grey rodent with its small yellow beak. I was excited, and I watched the falcon, or hawk, or whatever it was (though it did not look pompous enough to be an eagle, I'm certain) eat its just-caught lunch, right in a woodpile in some unaware persons backyard. I stood very still, as not to scare it away, for several minutes. Periodically I looked behind me, to see if anyone else noticed what I was doing. Sometimes I would see a friend or acquaintance, someone I was comfortable talking to, making their way past ten feet below. Each time I would motion frantically with my hands, press my finger to my lips, try to get them to come over quietly. But they didn't get it, or more likely, they didn't see me, and they just walked on past.

Eventually, I got frustrated, and the excitement was boiling over--so I began whispering, very quietly. "Hey guys, psst, look at this!" They didn't hear me. So I resorted to a quiet shout: "HEY GUYS C'MERE! LOOK WHAT I FOUND!"

I ran halfway down the hill to meet my friends and shepherd them to my wonderful secret.

But when I came to the fence again, the hawk was gone.