
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 4, 1995                   TAG: 9510040088
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BIRD-CALL TAPES DRIVE ME CUCKOO

When the cable died recently, the greatest station wagon driver of them all put on a tape of bird calls accompanied by the kind of music you hear in funeral parlors.

I like birds as well as the next aging person. I don't think, however, that listening to bird calls is the same type of fun as wearing a lampshade.

There was another bird call tape - unsupported by somber background music - that blew up the upstairs speakers I bought for $19.75 apiece.

To be fair here, I'll say that I almost certainly over-amped them while trying to drive the cat nuts with the song of the Double-Tufted Hebrides Sapsucker. Or maybe it was the Henna-Haired Bandersnatch. Or something.

And I'll admit further that taped bird calls tend to give me severe cases of smart mouth.

"When I was a boy," I told the driver, "we couldn't afford bird song tapes. And we couldn't have recorded any bird calls either. We were so poor the birds flew right over our house and did all their singing in the better parts of town."

"When you were a boy," the driver said, "they didn't have tapes and a lot of the birds we hear singing today hadn't started to evolve yet."

"That's right," I said. " I know where I stand around here. I spend a lifetime working without complaining and in my old age I have to sit around listening to a bunch of birds tweeting and hooting. It makes me nervous. I don't mind telling you that, Boopsy."

"Everything makes you nervous," the driver said. "And don't call me Boopsy."

"Does anybody ever ask me if I want to play my old Julie London LP?" I asked. "Or put on some really good fiddle music? Or listen to Patsy Cline? Noooo. I'm living out my last years in a vacuum with a bunch of dumb birds making funny noises."

The cat was listening to the tape and it was plain she was close to snapping and going insane.

"And that's another thing," I said. "If that cat goes crazy, I'm not paying for an analyst and tranquilizers. That thyroid operation she had nearly ruined us."

"Boy," the driver said, "and who else around here needs analysis?"

"I should think that people who listen to bird calls might be good prospects," I said.

"Whatever," the driver said, her personal signal that a conversation is at an end.

When I find my Julie London record, I'm going to play it until the driver begs for mercy.

by CNB