By Janice Lindsay
Contributing Writer
Every summer morning, around 4:30, he warbled his sweet song, atop a tree at the edge of the woods near our house. He sang a complex aria of short warbles, trills, and long warbles. The song took five or six seconds. He waited a song length, then started again.
And repeated. And repeated. For two hours.
Most birds wake around sunrise. The male offers a few refrains saying, “Good morning, everyone. I’m still here. Leave my family and me alone, go about your business, and I’ll go about mine.” Then he stops.
But my persistent little friend had apparently assumed that the sun would not rise unless he sang until everybody (including me) was up and about. From his point of view, he was right: He sang, the sun came up, the world rotated for one more day.
Lest you think his idea was silly, consider our own quirky beliefs. If I wear my lucky shirt, I’ll win the game. For a happy marriage, on her wedding day a bride should wear something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue, and a penny in her shoe.
I am reminded of – and here I must be a bit more indelicate than I usually am in these columns – red underwear. More about that later.
I learned to drive when I was in my mid-20s, on a dear old rattletrap with an automatic transmission. This was back when buyers always had a choice of automatic or standard shift; in other words, back before cars became smarter than drivers.
Life went on, I drove automatics, until about 15 years later when I was driving a lot and needed a new car. A five-speed Honda Civic would be more economical than an automatic, and I would have more control of the car on icy roads. I ordered the car before I knew how to drive it.
I practiced on my husband’s five-speed Nissan. I had a terrible time managing the eye/hand/foot coordination necessary to inspire the car to achieve a state of continuous forward motion.
One afternoon, I had to drive from Marlborough to Boston, a good time to practice gear-shifting. On the Mass Pike, I approached a toll booth behind a creeping line of cars. I had to stop. The cars ahead of me moved. I tried. The Nissan jumped forward and lurched to a halt. They moved forward again. The Nissan repeated its embarrassing performance. Finally, half-a-dozen car lengths lay, empty, between the toll booth and me. The toll-taker left the toll booth, sauntered to my car, and said kindly, “I’ll tell you what. You pay the toll here, and when you get this thing started, you can sail right through.” I did, and I did.
I was determined that this would not happen again. I would no longer travel on the Mass Pike. No, I actually determined that I would learn to do this.
That’s when I remembered my red underwear.
I didn’t normally wear red underwear, I don’t remember how I acquired it, and I will spare you descriptions. But I thought, “If I wear my red underwear, I will seem like Wonder Woman, courageous and in control. The car will respect that confidence and respond accordingly.”
So I did, and it did.
When my Honda arrived, it immediately sensed the self-assurance and it behaved. The red underwear had done its job. I no longer needed it.
So don’t mock my little bird friend for believing that his two-hour song will cause the world to continue spinning. How do we know it doesn’t?
And buy yourself some red underwear.
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