Writing Club - Memories of Home

Memories of Home
Samantha Weber, 8th grade, Sept. 9, 2005

“Slish, Slosh, Slish, Slosh.” My boots tread through the muddy slush on the sidewalks of New York City. The noise of my boots stops when I get to the bus stop and sit down on the cold, wet bench and wait for the bus that will take me to the airport. I’m headed home to my family because it will be Christmas in a few days. I’ve been living in the Big Apple for six months now, going to classes, working my way through college, and, of course, playing soccer. As much as I love this city with all its history and the many different kinds of people, I’m ready to go back to my house out in the country, in Freeport, Pennsylvania, where I grew up and was homeschooled. I miss the wildlife that inhabits my family’s property; I hope there are still plenty of birds, deer, rabbits, foxes, squirrels, and chipmunks looking to find some birdseed in our feeders. So many different kinds of animals came through our yard. People in New York City have most likely never seen many of them except on TV I muse. One experience will always stick out in my mind: the day I saw the Cooper’s Hawk in my backyard.

It was the summer of 2005, I was 13 and sitting at my desk looking out the window at a little chipmunk that was in our feeding station. All of a sudden my mother started to call me to come quickly and bring the camera! Running into the kitchen with the camera in hand, I looked out the window my mom was staring through and stopped dead in my tracks; my mouth flew open as I stared wide-eyed at the most stunning bird I have ever seen in my entire life: a falcon, we thought. I was eyeball to eyeball with the deadly bird of prey, face to beak with the sharp, smooth bill of the powerful bird, hand to foot with the choking claws of the young bird of prey. The flat brown and white head was set off by the solid black beak that looked as if it could shred any animal’s body to pieces.
All 20-24 inches of the magnificent bird sat perched on our post that had a light on top for when it was dark out and we wanted to swim. The top of the post stood feet away from our kitchen window, and the bird was right at our eye level. For perhaps 5 minutes, he sat still, only turning his head and looking around through his yellow eyes, before he flew away, pumping slowly the strong dark wings. I was amazed at how long he had perched there without showing the slightest hint of nervousness. And, while he had sat, I had snapped pictures with our digital camera and my brain had recorded its own snapshops: these pictures are stored in my memory, where all my “once in a lifetime” experiences are kept along with all the other pictures that remind me of home. We sent our pictures to a local naturalist who told us the bird was not a falcon but an immature, and rather uncommon, Cooper’s Hawk. Remembering this hawk’s face-to-face visit with me makes me realize how often I took for granted the special little things of home and homeschool too because this bird encourter began a short unit study on hawks.

Ssssssssssss, the bus slows to a stop and a little bird that was in the street flies to a nearby tree; I get up off the bench and make my way to the bus door; I walk up the steps and find a seat in the back. As the bus starts to move, the buildings and dirty streets turn into a blur. I’m leaving New York City and going home. Home, where all the people are the same, but the panorama of wildlife is always changing.