The Pigeon

Why the pigeon?

Well, I like the picture.

Why do I like the picture?

Well, here's the story:

I spend a lot of my days at work around radio towers up on mountains. While I don't climb the towers, I do a lot of preventative maintenance on the equipment at the bottom of them. This can be a monotonous job. I enjoy it, but some days are simply filled with constant meter readings, mindless data entry, and the deafening hum of rack mount equipment fans. There's no reason to talk, since a lot of it is solo. You can quickly get lost in your own head thinking about stuff like, "I wonder what's for dinner?" These thoughts are quickly interrupted by more meter readings and trying to remember numbers that I have to jot down on a clip board that's in a different section of the building. There's also a lot of running in and out of doors, due to this. It all kind of reminds me of a restless night of sleep filled with half-started, never finished, dreams.

On one such day I arrived at a tower site and found that there was this pigeon waddling around. Not giving it much thought I started into the tower site building to take my readings. Oddly enough, this little guy appeared to be following me from a distance. "Nah!" I thought, he's just waddling around like pigeons do. After taking some readings I had to run into the generator side of the building which meant having to go back outside. On opening the door, I found Mr. (Mrs.?) Pigeon waddling around the door as I opened it, staring at me with his (her?) head cocked to the side. The pigeon continued to follow me, now staying only inches from my boot!

That's when I noticed the tag around it's foot! It's a homing pigeon! I quickly grabbed a box and from my car and found the pigeon willing to hop right into it.

Well, that was the end of getting any "meaningful" work done for that day! I was quickly home and on the internet finding out who's pigeon had flown into our tower. I also let the pigeon out of the box and gave him some water and sunflower seeds.

After some sleuthing around I ended up on the phone with an old guy who owned a hardware store somewhere in Upstate NY. He relayed the information to the pigeon's owner.

After doing this I went outside to check on Mr. (Mrs.?) Pigeon. To my surprise, he (she?) had decided that they were ready to get back to flying, again. They were gone! That silly pigeon must have faithfully followed me around for at least two hours. I would go inside and come out 5 minutes later, and they'd be waiting right there at the door. Now that I had finally gotten in touch with their owner, the silly bird was gone!

This pigeon reminds me that sometimes things in life are just there for the story, to keep life from being too monotonous, or maybe just to remind us how quickly things can come and go in this life. Enjoy the distractions and praise God for what comes and goes.