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“March
of the Penguins”
by Peary Perry | |
Excuse
me if some of the columns I’ve written these past few weeks seem to ramble or
don’t make a lot of sense. As I have told you I am living under somewhat of a
strain with our house being ‘updated’. Not remodeled, mind you, updated. Whatever
that means.
I normally carry a pad and pen with me wherever I go, so
that I can jot down column ideas as they pop into my head or as I see something
worthwhile to write about. Did I just use the word …normal? We are now into our
4th week in the ‘updating’ process and nothing in my life seems normal at this
time. I can’t find anything. I am certain in my previous lives I was never a nomad
since I am such a creature of habit; I get discombulated if my stuff isn’t where
I left it. My lovely wife loses her glasses on an hourly basis. I don’t. I know
where mine are at all times. I am a neat and orderly person. A habit that drives
some folks to drink. Not my wife, but it might one day if I don’t lighten up.
Anyway,
I can’t find my normal pad with my notes. All I have is an envelope from some
company or organization wanting to know what my opinion is on our immigration
policy. Somehow I don’t think it matters what my opinion is, I think they are
more interested in the amount of money they want me to send to help them in their
‘desperate fight’. I made the mistake of sending someone some money for something
or another a few months ago, and purposely misspelled my name to read Peter instead
of Peary. I must get 3-5 e-mail solicitations a day for one cause or another.
It makes you wish you could donate without having to identify yourself.
On this immigration questionnaire envelope I find I have written the words..’birds’,’fish’
and “March of the Penguins”. I am wracking my feeble brain to try and make sense
of what I was trying to opine upon. After another cup of coffee, it finally hits
me. We recently went to see the movie called...”March of the Penguins”. If it
comes to your neighborhood, I’d highly recommend you go and see it. No car crashes,
no evil overlord, no nude (well, the penguins are naked) steamy love scenes or
multiple murders. That is unless you call a hawk swooping down on a luckless penguin,
murder. Otherwise, the film is a great documentary about how penguins at the South
Pole care for their young. Very entertaining to watch. I would highly recommend
this film. There isn’t much of a plot, so I don’t think telling you some facts
will destroy the story for you. It isn’t like a mystery or drama.
The entire
penguin population walks over 70 miles inland from the ocean to their nesting
areas so they can lay their eggs and be safe from predators. However, the film
dramatically points out that after the female penguin lays her egg, she leaves
it with the father penguin. He carefully balances it on his feet and has to keep
it warm so it won’t freeze. Freezing the egg is a bad thing and tends to make
the mother penguin very upset with the father. Then the female makes a 70-mile
trek back to the sea to get some grub to feed the family. As she starts back to
the colony, the eggs start to hatch and everyone is hungry waiting for mama to
show up from the store with the goodies. You can imagine how long it takes a penguin
with short strides to walk 70 miles each way. I’ll leave the rest up to you to
see how this turns out. A side note of interest, somehow the female penguin can
tell who the father is and returns eagerly to see her newly hatched chick. Some
of the fathers have lost their charges or allowed the egg to roll out from their
feet and freeze. These father penguins try to blend in with the rest of the population,
but get caught by the distraught mothers. One can only imagine what she has to
say about his stupidity after having given birth and then walking 140 miles roundtrip
to the store and back. My wife would be plenty hacked, I can tell you that for
sure.
What is surprising to me is that there hasn’t been some do gooder
organization sending out solicitations for donations to send planeloads of fish
to the patiently waiting penguins and little penguins. I mean we all get requests
to save the whales, the dolphins, tuna, the cats, the sea lions, the pandas, various
birds, homeless dogs and who knows what else. But I haven’t seen any letters asking
me to donate for a fish airlift to the South Pole. It probably doesn’t matter
that these birds have been doing very well without our help for thousands of years
and don’t need us to assist in their annual mating and birthing schedule.
How
long will it be before someone latches onto the idea that these poor defenseless
creatures can’t make it another year without our human intervention? I suppose
it’s just a matter of time…here comes the mail now, I’ll see what’s in there today….
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