We are on vacation at the lake house I share with my brother and sister. A bald eagle has made its home here. This morning I spotted it high in a pine tree, watching for prey. As I looked at it, it looked down at me. Our eyes caught. In that moment, I felt myself migrate into its body, and it migrate into mine. With my newly keened vision I could see myself from on high, and I realized that no one gets away with wearing a plaid shirt with plaid shorts, and at last I understood why the animals all laugh at me.

It is estimated by the the well-known scientist, Dr. Passive Voice Anonymous, that bald eagles are successful at catching prey only one in eighteen strikes. In short, from bald eagles we learn the important lesson that even they are not very good at what they do, and that a human with a rifle or even a baseball bat would be far better at being an eagle.

Benjamin Franklin, the only president of the United States who was never president [source], proposed that the turkey be the symbol of America. Thomas Jefferson objected however, arguing that “the sign and symbol of a nation so dedicated to ideals of human nature should not itself be delicious.” The two great men met to discuss the matter at a legendary dinner in the Priors Alehouse on Broad Street in Philadelphia, and emerged with a document that declared the bald eagle to be “sufficiently stringy, albeit with a certain gamyness not unpleasant to the tooth” to serve as the new nation’s symbol.

Categories: humor dw