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DAVID BENTLEY'S WEEKLY COLUMN |
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UNINTENDED LESSONS
I heard the rattling before I saw what was causing it. It was the familiar sound of a cellophane wrapper. I was expecting to see another human in my vicinity opening a bag of something -- food, hardware, hair barrettes, anything that comes in a cellophane wrapper. Yet there was no one around me. The nearby bench was empty. The two cars parked on the curb were locked tight with the windows rolled up. Where was the noise coming from? Anyone observing me on the sidewalk would have thought I needed a team of men in white jackets to escort me back to the mental hospital. No matter which direction I turned, I could not find the source of that sound. It was only when I began to walk away that the noise stopped and a sudden motion between the curb and a car tire caught my attention. There in the shadows was a crow trying to extract a bit of nourishment from one of those individual packages of six small cookies. Standing dead still in my tracks, I tried not to scare the bird so that I could watch it struggle to get into the depths of that cellophane bag. What I saw was astounding! Holding the sides of the bag against the pavement with its feet, the crow used its beak like a pair of scissors to rip open the seam from top to bottom. It was a slow task, but the bird was persistent. A few more attempts, and the task was done. Then the crow grabbed its prize and flew away. Without any class on how to cut open a cookie bag the crow had learned how to get what it wanted, even though it was not in its best health interest to do so. As I continued my walk, I had to wonder what unintended lessons we humans learn in exactly the same manner.
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SAN JUAN ISLANDER © 2008 |
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