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Archive for the ‘Birds’ Category

But: I Was Never Silent

Posted in aging, Art, Birds, Journeys, Writing on May 1, 2023| 4 Comments »

Aging My Way

My generation lies between what Tom Brokaw calls the Greatest Generation — those who lived through the Great Depression and then went on to fight in World War II – and the Boomers (1946-64).

Born in 1939, I belong to the Silent Generation, one the Encyclopedia Britannica says consists of: “cautious conformists who sought stability, worked hard, and thrived by not rocking the boat in an era of booming postwar economic prosperity.” This generation also had a lower birth rate than the generation before or after, it was noted.

I think we Silents were also influenced by the Great Depression because it was our parents who lived through it. I was raised by a mother who could stretch a penny to the moon and back, and a bit of it rubbed off onto me. By sometimes following her example, and also setting spending priorities, I was able over the years to follow a few of my dreams to completion.

But I’ve never been silent. And while my generation had fewer offspring overall, I had five children. That was awkward when all my work colleagues once were sprouting zero population growth pamphlets. Looking around at what we’re doing to Mother Earth today, I’ve shifted over to their way of thinking – and my adult grandkids seem to agree.

Time changes everything is an understatement.

Today, some politicians – racist ones in my opinion – are calling for families to have 10 or more kids. Ouch. I feel sorry for their poor mothers. Frankly, I wish we would all just mingle together more so that everyone would end up a golden brown.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to understand what the Generation Xers (1965-79), Xenials (1976-85), Gen Y/Millennials (1980-94) and Generation Z (1995-2012) are all about. Yes, I had to do a bit of research to name them all.

 Today, looking at my grand and great kids – who range in age from four to mid-40s — I think they’re doing all right. I know for one thing; they don’t put up with all the crap we Silents, who didn’t want to rock the boat, did. And that’s a good thing.

But I would like them to be more respectful when I tell them I had to walk 10 miles to school in a snow storm.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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A Writer’s Dream

Posted in aging, Birds, Books, Journeys, Travels With Maggie, tagged on April 5, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Aging My Way

 “Sooner or later, all vagabonds discover that something strange happens to them en route. They become aware of having wandered into a subtle network of coincidence and serendipity that eludes explanation. On Tiptoe, magic enters.” – Ed Buryn.

After coming across the above quote, I was interested in buying Buryn’s book, Vagabonding in the USA: A Guide to Independent Travel, which was published in 1980. I thought it would be fun to compare what he had seen and written about to my travels across North America in a small RV from 2004-2013 — and what I wrote about it in my book Travels with Maggie, which was published in 2017.

But I only found one copy of Ed’s book available on the internet, and it was a used paperback selling for $85. Dang it! That’s a bit too expensive for a retiree living on a fixed income. I then checked my local library, but also struck out. It didn’t have a copy.  

Anyone have a copy of Ed’s book they would like to exchange for a copy of my Travels with Maggie?  I know my paperback only sells on Amazon for $5.99, but maybe someday it might be worth more. Who knows?  It happened to Ed’s book.

Meanwhile, I find it kinda nice to have such a dream.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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High Five to Differences

Posted in aging, Art, Birds, Journeys, Writing on March 27, 2023| 6 Comments »

The Meadowlark and the Chukar, different but both still awesome. — Art by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

It is the part of us that is not like the others that is the best of us.

I came across these words recently, and it set my brain cells to pondering. I mentally started listing my own oddities, going back to my childhood when I was way too loud. I know that for a fact because I was always being told to lower my voice.

And being told to be quiet and shut up didn’t stop at home, where my mother and grandmother often told me that children are to be seen and not heard. It was frequently echoed by my teachers and classmates.

Except instead of being cute — I was skinny and freckle-faced with stringy hair — I can see myself, when young, as being very like Hermione in the Harry Potter stories: a know-it-all and always the first student to raise a hand when a question was asked.

My classmates nicknamed me Cootie-Brain, which followed me around from first to fourth grade, finally ending when my family moved and I went to a new school.

But the label Cootie-Brain was so hurtful to me as a child that I couldn’t speak it as an adult until I was in my 40s. And it wasn’t until I could finally write the word down and talk about it that the wounds it had inflicted on my soul could heal.

While the years toned me down, I also came to the realization that my true friends accepted me just as I was, because the loudness still returns when I get excited or enthusiastic about something. But now at 83, I’m happy I can still get excited. Maybe if I had tamped down my enthusiastic loudness when I was young, I wouldn’t have this wonderful asset today.

There are many ways I’ve always felt different from others, but the years, along with life and books, have taught me that we are all different in our own ways. And isn’t that wonderful?

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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A Blog for Trekkies and Oldsters

Posted in aging, Art, Birds, Journeys, tagged on March 13, 2023| 8 Comments »

Aging My Way

          Some asshole writer commenting on William Shatner, in the NY Times no less, implied he wasn’t a fantastic actor and hadn’t lived an incredible life. The comment had me screaming.

While I might agree Shatner’s acting might not be Oscar worthy, his role as Captain Kirk helped launch Star Trek’s incredible popularity, and as for leading an incredible life, how many of us can say we’ve flown in space.

Besides, I believe that each and every one of us lead incredible lives, ones that no one else can duplicate. I know I have. While I may not have had as many incredible things happen to me as Shatner – aftercall I’m only 83 and he’s 91 – I’m still enough.  

Even if people have the same experiences, no one reacts, comprehends, thinks, or responds exactly the same. Each of us is valuable in our own way. But that nitwit writer judged Shatner, I suspect because of his fame, against some higher standard.

The writer’s words certainly weren’t kind – or necessary, and in my mind represent the bullying that we’re trying to stem among our youth.

Still, since I’m not a Trekkie, you may be wondering, why the words of that nincompoop had me screaming, I’m kind of wondering about my reaction as well.

Screaming at something I read is not common, but then again, it’s not rare either. But this reaction was pretty strong.

Maybe it was my growing awareness, now having time to reflect on life, that each of us, in our own way, is incredibly enough for this world. Or maybe it’s because I have a grandson who qualifies for that Trekkie moniker, and I was screaming for him. .

 Or maybe it was just one old person taking up for another old person.  

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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Memory Triggers

Posted in aging, Art, Birds, Journeys on March 10, 2023| 2 Comments »

A trip down memory lane — Art by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

My granddaughter Shanna often calls me as she drives to work in the mornings. She’s a fantastic woman who at 40 found herself starting life anew. She was a bit downhearted about it, but I told her that my life only got more interesting and exciting once I reached that landmark – and that’s the honest truth.

Yesterday morning as we chatted, she mentioned that she had met someone who might turn out to be a good mentor for her.

 The word mentor triggered a memory of my first, a tall, down-home, y’all-speaking, Texas county sheriff, who taught me the ropes for covering a murder investigation when I was a green-behind-the-ears reporter – after he had humiliated me a couple of times. But then that taught me the power of persistence.

It was a good memory. But then I’ve always tended to bury bad memories beneath a heavy rock that rarely gets lifted — and that’s a gift I treasure.

Memories, at least for me, are one of the positives about growing older. And if you’re into your eighth decade, and embraced life, you’re bound to have a lot of them. And the years have taught me that sometimes the simple and quiet ones, like a phone call from a loved one, or staring out at a field full of Texas bluebonnets, can be as meaningful as standing under a waterfall at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

But don’t get me wrong. I’m not through with creating memories. I collected one just this morning as I watched a pair of courting mourning doves prance around my yard. At 83, I’m a lot more observant than I was at 23.

So, listen up brain. You better make some more room up there.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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Super Bowl Morning

Posted in aging, Birds, Dogs, Journeys, Uncategorized, tagged on February 12, 2023| 8 Comments »

Antelope Island in 2002. The water level of Great Salt Lake has dropped significantly since then. — Photo by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

“It’s quiet, peaceful. My soul feels blessed,” I wrote in my journal on March 19, 2002. This was the winter that I visited Antelope Island in Utah’s Great Salt Lake at least once a week. My companion was usually only my canine companion Maggie — and I usually had the 42-square-mile island almost to myself, given that there was often snow on the ground.

It was a very busy winter for me. As city editor in charge of my Ogden newspaper’s coverage of the 2002 Winter Olympics, whose downhill ski events were all being held in the paper’s backyard, Antelope Island was my recall to sanity.

 I also thought of the lake and island as my personal Birding 101 Lab. It was here, with the help of birding field guides, I learned to identify ducks and swallows and shorebirds and songbirds all on my own. And I recorded it all in my journals.

The robin and meadowlark sharing a tree and seemingly trying to out-sing one another. The magpie stealing food from a golden eagle. A chukar sitting on a rock staring at me as I drove past. The rainbow of sparkling color on the starlings’ black feathers. The lone pair of Barrow’s goldeneyes among the flock of common goldeneyes. The pair of ravens that always seemed to appear near the curve in the six-mile causeway to the island.

And not just birds. There were bison, which sometimes blocked the road, and  prong-horn antelope that kept their distance, and the porcupine asleep in a tree, and especially the lone coyote that followed me across the causeway one morning.

Rereading my words from over 20 years ago, while sitting here over 800 miles away in Tucson on a cold, but sunny morning, drinking my cream-laced coffee, I smile. It’s a good way to start Superbowl Sunday.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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The Red Bird

Posted in aging, Art, Birds, Journeys on February 8, 2023| 2 Comments »

A quick painting of a Northern Cardinal I made in a sketchbook 10 years ago. I see I drew the leaves better than the bird, but I did capture the familiar bird’s flamboyance.

Aging My Way

Looking out my bedroom sliding glass door, I saw a red bird sitting on the fence, exactly where mourning doves sit almost daily, and where once in a while a Cooper’s Hawk perches, quickly frightening the doves to scatter.fla

One of the hawk’s favorite meals is smaller birds.

And that includes the Northern Cardinal, the male red bird that graced me with his presence as I drank my cream-laced coffee this morning. I suspected the less colorful female was nearby, but I see her far less often.

The cardinal is one of the birds I grew up with, for a long time knowing it only as the red bird. It’s now become one of the few birds whose voice I can recognize. Sometimes it sounds like cheer-cheer-cheer, other times like pre-tty, pre-tty, pre-tty. Since it doesn’t migrate from season to season, it’s always around, although it’s often called the winter bird.

Photographers and artists love to capture its brilliant red feathers against a snowy background, and Christmas cards abound with such images. Another example of this red bird’s popularity is that seven states – Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia – call it their state bird.

And it’s the mascot for Arizona’s NFL football team. I note this last because since I have now lived in Tucson for 10 years, it’s something I should know.

But what I like best about the cardinal is that it was my grandmother’s favorite bird. And seeing one always reminds me of her.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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The Quandary of Life and Work

Posted in aging, Art, Birds, Books, Journeys, tagged , on January 9, 2023| 4 Comments »

Saw-Whet Owl — The silver lining of aging is that I have more time to observe birds and paint them. — Art by Pat Bean

As An Old Broad Sees It

I married young, had five children, then joined the work force a month before I turned 28. I was lucky. I fell into a job that I loved so much that I overlooked how hard I struggled to make it all come together as a working mom. I actually believed I could have it all. That makes me laugh now. Today’s women are wiser.

I joined the work force in 1967, long before the much-needed Me-Too Revolution took place. It was also a time in history when women, in large numbers, were finally speaking up for equal opportunities and equal rights and pay as men.

We women have come a long way since then. Just one example is that in the 1960s, women accounted for only 3 percent of the nation’s lawyers. Today that number is over 40 percent. Ruth Baden Ginsburg pointed out the growing numbers of female lawyers in her book My Own Words.

But on a more personal level, I see my granddaughters struggle with finding jobs that they enjoy, but also jobs that let them have a life outside of work. And they are not alone. Just this morning I came across two articles, one in the N.Y. Times, and one that just popped up because I was reading the Times piece. (Sometimes I think the computer gods know more about what I should want than I do.)

Wrote Roxane Gay in the Times article: “… People want something different, something more. They want more satisfaction or more money or more respect. They want to feel as if they’re making a difference. They want to feel valued or seen or heard. They want the man in the next cubicle to chew less loudly so they are afforded more peace … They want to have more time for themselves and interests beyond how they spend their professional lives. They want and want and want and worry that they will never receive the satisfaction they seek.

I’ve heard the same thoughts from my granddaughters.

These are thoughts this old broad, raised by parents who lived through the Great Depression, is only now beginning to hear. During my parents’ era, the main concern was simply for the man of the family to have a job, hopefully one that the family could survive on, never mind if he liked the job or not.

I remember hearing my father say, when my mother finally went to work after the children were all gone, “her salary only pays for what the IRS now charges me in taxes.” This wasn’t true but it salvaged his pride that his wife was working. She, actually, was a better provider than he had ever been.

Now retired, I have time to reflect on all the advances we women, and men, have made over the years. l think having a life outside of work is a worthy idea, especially, since as a journalist of my era, I met hundreds of people who hated their jobs but didn’t have the advantage of quitting, or so they thought.

If I hadn’t fallen into a job I loved, and which gave me all the satisfaction I needed, I could have been one of them.

Now, I’m just an old broad enjoying her retirement, and having time to look at the world a bit differently. I find this quandary of life and its many changes fascinating – but glad I’m not in the middle of the quandary. Being an old broad does have its silver linings.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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The Season of Old Age

Posted in aging, Art, Birds, Journeys on November 4, 2022| 3 Comments »

Cattle Egret — I wonder if birds worry about aging? — Art by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

There’s all sorts of advice out there in the media world these days about not letting yourself grow old. This morning I came across a piece that indicated no one should feel old until they’re well into their 80s, and that even then it was iffy.

Hmm… Well, I’m into my 80s.

Some days I feel old, and some days I feel younger than I was in my 20s and 30s, when I was bogged down with child care, a career and catastrophes around every corner.

I love not being responsible for anyone but myself, and not having to get up to the sound of an alarm clock – although sleeping in for me means I’m often up even before the sun. I’m a morning person.

The change in my life at my age is that if I feel like going to bed at 7 p.m., or even 6 p.m., I do so. And when I stay up until midnight, or later, it’s because I want to, not because I have responsibilities to fulfil before I can finally crawl beneath the covers.

I feel young when I can get out into nature and bird watch – and forget that I’ll never again make it up to the top of the mountain to see peregrine falcons flying beneath me.

I feel young when I’m behind the wheel of a car taking off for a road trip. The feeling lasts until my body screams: Stop and rest! And that happens well before dark. But then I never liked driving in the dark anyway. I want to see all the wonders I’m passing.

I feel young when I’m socializing with old friends and laughing together with them about the good old days. Of course, they weren’t all good, and these days aren’t all bad. At my age, you realize that nothing is ever perfect, but that what goes around comes around.

Age, meanwhile, has brought me peace, and a love for myself that youth kept just beyond my reach. And I wouldn’t trade that for anything.  I’m in the season I was meant to be in. So, pains and wrinkles be damned, I’m going to take each day as it comes – and be thankful for it.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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It’s Nice to be Got

Posted in aging, Birds, Journeys on October 29, 2022| 7 Comments »

We are all strong — and in our own way, each of us is perfectly enough, I imagine this wise old bird saying.

Aging My Way

          I am a strong woman — most of the time. Let me see someone hurt an animal or a child and I am standing tall and vocal and ready to do battle. And I was 110 percent into fighting the tough battle for equal pay for equal work when I was a working journalist.

          However, that strength didn’t extend into all areas of my life, including many instances of ignoring career and personal injustices. And I haven’t gotten much better with age. One example is that I would rather take a loss than return an unwise purchase.  

Most recently, I have let the promised trim of the two Oleander trees in the patio area of my new apartment go undone ever since I moved into the new place on August 20. Yeah, I made two half-hearted requests of the apartment manager, and even cornered one of the landscape guys – without success.

Then I started trying to trim the trees myself because I didn’t want to ask anymore. I’m not sure what this reluctance is all about, but I do know I have one granddaughter, Heidi, who takes after me. We tell her to get her sister, Lindsey, to act as her voice when something is serious. Lindsey takes no prisoners.

 And neither does my granddaughter Shanna, who also lives in my apartment complex. She recently took off from work for a few hours to corner the landscapers and demand they trim her grandmother’s trees.

The result was that I soon watched the workers through my sliding glass doors go about doing the job. They not only trimmed the trees but gave my patio area a good raking to take care of all the fallen leaves. And when they finished, they gave me a thumbs up.

I’m not exactly sure what Shanna said to them, but it certainly worked. When I thanked her, all she said was: “I got you Nana.” It’s nice to “be got.” 

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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