Third graders admire each other's national park displays in the school gym.

While I’m there, I give a short talk about being a park ranger and then the kids ask me questions. Among the questions I always get is, “How much money do you make?”

The visit is usually the highlight of my work year and, lest I forget amid the routine and the bureaucracy, a good reminder of why I have that job.

I ran over a squirrel this morning on my way to the farmers market, with my bicycle. I couldn’t believe it. Two young squirrels were in the middle of the street doing who-knows-what as I glided downhill. One dashed to the far curb but the other checked back and forth before heading right into my rear wheel. I felt the bump. It must have survived the moment, because when I looked back it was gone. I doubt it will survive though.

Stupid thing. I hate running over animals but that was pure destiny if I’ve ever seen it.

The weather was good for it excepting the storm that rolled in during commute time Tuesday evening. Then my wife had to pick me up.

During my morning rides I discovered I had a nemesis: an aggressively territorial red-winged blackbird. The blackbirds are ubiquitous along the route. They nest in the grassy ditches along the farm fields. The males  perch above their little kingdoms on the telephone wires that line the road.

I’ve been attacked by blackbirds before, but this one was particularly regular and devious. His particular stretch of road curved steeply over a ridge, so I was moving slow and couldn’t quite look all the way up to see him. I could hear him chirping overhead as he launched himself from the wire and then suddenly a whirring of feathers as he buzzed my right ear from behind. Every single morning in the exact same place (right down to the same crack in the asphalt). I knew he was coming but in my concentration pedaling up the hill he’d still startle me. “Damn you!” I shouted as I shook my fist at him.

“Because we have to take care of it,” I said. “That’s our job.”

“I would just let it fall apart and burn down,” she said.

My co-worker pointed out the kid is a future voter. Yikes.

See how our slaves live!

Nikita Khrushchev

I was raised to say, “God bless you” but since I doubt God has anything to do with sneezes or their remedies, I don’t say it anymore. For a while I would say “Gezundheit!” a puzzling invocation of German (a British friend took me to task for that once). Since marrying an Argentinian, I’ve been saying, “Salud!” though it’s not always understood by English speakers. I like it because you can say, “Dinero!” and, “Amor!” for the second and third sneezes respectively.

In trying to invent a suitable sneeze pleasantry I came up with one so universally offensive that from now on if you sneeze and I don’t say anything, it’s because I’m refraining from saying “Sneezus Christ!”

“I am an independent running for president,” she said as she left.

That’s not something I expected her to hear, for a couple of reasons. One is that presidential candidates avoid anything related to Herbert Hoover as if its radioactive (though the occasional fringe candidate comes during the Iowa caucuses). The other that she didn’t even say who she was, which would be helpful when unknown and seeking votes. To her credit, election campaigning is not allowed in national parks and perhaps she was following that rule strictly. If so, this may a good example of how integrity doesn’t help to win elections.