America, You’re Beautiful
By: Brooke Ramey Nelson
Tags: Mother Nature, Commute, America The Beautiful, Bald Eagle, Outdoors

America, You’re Beautiful

I didn’t capture this image, but photographer Eric Diller saw something similar to my tale in 2012.

America, you’re beautiful. But you already knew that.

We moved to a wooded neighborhood on a suburban summit a while back. In addition to the fact that we have so many trees on our half-acre of Heaven that it’s impossible to grow grass (“Yes!” Moker exclaimed when made aware of the fact that he’d have more acorns and leaves to contend with than lawn maintenance chores. He says he’s allergic to grass. I say he possesses a great deal of antipathy toward mowing the lawn), our own sweet corner of Charlotte, NC, is friendly to critters.

Birds of all stripes chortle and chitter, 24/7. We have a friendly owl who usually chooses to “hoo” (for some reason he doesn’t enunciate, or I just don’t hear the “T” at the end of his “hoo,” although I’ve been assured by my son-in-law that he’s a “Hoot” Owl) at us from a tree near our bedroom between 5 and 6 a.m.; we hear his wise words from a farther distance as darkness descends on the neighborhood the night before. We have an extended family of black squirrels that skitters up and down the dozens of oak trees on our property, harvesting acorns and sometimes pausing in their labor to crack open a few and leave the assembled detritus strewn all over our front yard’s retaining wall. And the acorns surrounding our house, I reckon, will continue their thunking and thwopping on the roof of the screened-in porch until they’re good and ready to stop the racket.

Don’t forget the descendents of Bambi who make our subdivision their home. White-tailed deer often fight the squirrels for the bounty of the oak trees. They decided my gold-colored mums were a special treat a couple of weeks ago. We spotted a buck next to our kitchen window just the other morning. He was so blasé about the humans staring at him that he merely stared back before moseying down the hill to see what might be planted in the backyard. A word to the wise if you live in a pretend-wilderness like ours: Yes, we have a fence in the back. And no, it doesn’t keep Bambi and his friends from hopping right on over like it was nothing and grazing where they will. Can’t wait to see what they’re partial to in the spring, when the growing season sends us the most colorful blooms. Or so I’ve been told.

I’ve never been known to be at one with Mother Nature. Yes, I enjoy the outdoors, but when given a choice between a tent and a room at the Econo Lodge, I’ll take the latter, with perhaps a delivery from Pizza Hut on the side (not picky at all, as long as I don’t have to rough it). I’ve climbed — and camped out on — Mount Rogers in Southwest Virginia several times, and hoofed it up to Machu Picchu in Peru. I’ve snorkeled off Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, as well as in Honolulu Bay and Stingray City in the Cayman Islands. But I’d really rather enjoy the outdoors while hanging in a hammock on the beach at the Wreck Bar, not far from those stingrays. Perhaps with a Red Stripe as a companion.

Yup, Moker (being from small-town Wisconsin and all) drug me out to the Blue Ridge Parkway in October to marvel at the mountains and the brilliant fall foliage. We stopped at a brewery in Blowing Rock, NC. Let it be noted that I enjoyed myself immensely, but if closely consulted, I really would have rather spent the afternoon in that cute little burg, leaving the dead leaves (’cause you do realize those arresting ambers and golds and all are really the leaves just saying “adios” to the trees until next spring) to someone else.

I’m from Texas. First off, we don’t have a heck of a lot of trees. Secondly, what we do have — Live Oak, Mimosa and a ton of Mesquite — pretty much stays green (by Lone Star State standards, which I realize are vastly different from Wisconsin or North Carolina) year-round. Come to think of it, in the fall foliage category, we have pretty much zip. Zero. Nada damn cosa, as my Nana would say. And as for wildlife? I’m sure there are bucks out beyond the buffalo grass in West Texas somewhere, but in Dallas we’re used to tarantulas in our rock gardens and armadillos on our rural routes.

About 10 years ago, however, I was reintroduced to “Neature,” as one of my former students calls the Great Outdoors, in a very big way. And that introduction was inspiring in an “America the Beautiful,” as sung by the Late, the Great, Ray Charles style.

I recall the moment as a commute for the ages.

Swinging a wide left out of the school parking lot, I downshifted as the color of the stoplight up ahead slid from yellow to red. The boy grinding through the gears of his Mustang Turbo GT (circa mid-’80s) in the lane next to mine cut his horsepower by half. Then braked. Hard.

But the young man wasn’t looking at the approaching light. He had his eyes on the sky.

I put on my brakes and followed his gaze to the clouds. I don’t usually mimic the behavior of teenaged miscreants who believe that belching mufflers somehow will establish their manhood, but soon my vision fixed at about mid-point between the road and the cumulus high above us.

We both — well, I know I did — held our breaths as a bald eagle — and remember, this was suburban D.C. and not the wilds of Wyoming — rode the chilly fall currents only he could feel to snag a hapless gray squirrel, which had been minding his own business foraging for acorns on the grassy median in front of the high school.

The crowd of afternoon commuters behind the two of us, forced to slow as we watched one of the most graceful of Passion Plays, didn’t honk, didn’t gesture. Those drivers, too, ceased their urge to scurry home as they watched Mama Nature get to work.

In the seconds it took the eagle to reach around the squirrel with his talons, I knew that what I saw at that moment was both the majesty and the horror inherent in our national symbol.

I rubbed one eye with a balled-up fist, not wishing to witness the persecution of the tiny mammal but at the same time transfixed by the action unfurling before me. No Spielberg could have choreographed such drama, such pitiful hopelessness, as the squirrel put up but a half-hearted struggle, dangling for a quick second, several feet above the road.

And then, in a more than majestic swoop, the eagle arched his body and clutched his prey as he aimed on climbing high above the trees. Soon enough, they were gone.

The boy in the Mustang raised his right fist in a salute to the huge bird of prey, the national symbol of the American Experiment. For a flashing millisecond, this young man forgot about cool and surrendered to his inner child, awed by a performance that, I know, we both still talk about when we think of the miracles neither one of us could ever imagine. The hunt. The conquest. The dignity. The passion, and yes, the love. Our America. The Beautiful.

The kid turned his head to look at me. He smiled. And then he accelerated, reaching 60 before I’d had a chance to catch my breath.