The Ostrich - Part 1

So, in order to reduce my jail time, I “volunteered” to do some community service.

As I reviewed the veritable cornucopia of options a “volunteer” might choose for a venue, I noticed that I could do my time at an exotic animal rescue compound located in the canyons of the Angeles National Forest, about 25 miles north of Los Angeles. Many retired celebrity animals like Clyde the Orangutan, famous for Clint Eastwood’s “Any Which Way…” movies and Leo, the MGM Lion have retired to this facility. Given the overall “generosity” of our court system, I planned for regular and very lengthy “visits” to this rather unique place.

Someone once told me that the purpose of Community Service was not only to provide service back to the community, but that in serving the community I might learn something. In truth, they were right. I learned many things during my time there. I learned how to build corrals and cages. I discovered that each and every animal on the planet makes poo and I know now what a great many of those smell like. And I know three major things about the ostrich that I never knew before. But, before that, I discovered that we, as humans, do have racial memories. These things are past down to us, genetically, from our ancestors. The chiefest of these is fear. Fear of being lunch, fear of not outrunning someone else in the pack, fear of falling out of the gene pool in a most egregious, messy, and embarrassing way …

So, the story goes that after spending a goodly portion of time <many weekly visits> building cages, mucking stalls, discovering <in a far too in-depth way> what Binturong poo looks like and generally proving myself to the staff, I am assigned to lead a small work crew moving horses from one set of stalls to another. Our hot and dusty trail leads us from stalls in a far portion of the ranch, past the cattle corrals, between some of the lion pens to some stalls closer to the front entrance so that the older stalls in the “back 40” could be rebuilt. As we herded 5 horses up the trail I was working with the last horse in line that was being a bit stubborn and moving very slowly. I was fairly focused on keeping this old guy moving along and not particularly watching where I was going exactly, as I was following the other horses. Suddenly a snake darted across the trail in front of my horse, startling him. As he side-stepped left, I avoided getting stepped on by moving hard left and to the rear several feet very quickly, until I slammed myself into something solid. When I turned to figure out what had been blocking my retreat, I suddenly realized where I was and that it was a solid fence pole on the chain link fence of a lion cage.

I whipped around to see that I had woken up a very large old lion, who had been sunning himself on top of his glorified dog house within his pen, less than a foot from where I stood. At this point I turned fully around and that old lion waited until he caught my eye. Once he had my full and undivided attention, proceeded to execute a wide-mouthed, bone rattling, full volume roar which you normally do not see except in front the movies. I knew that there was a double thick chain link fence and little else between myself and old Leo. Regardless of the knowledge that I was in a safe place, I am only fairly sure that I did not soil myself right there on the spot. I am certain, however, that that old cantankerous bastard did it to me on purpose and it did make a very lasting impression. And let me just say that there is little as humbling or that truly conveys one’s place in the food chain as that sound. It touches a very instinctive core of fear that any non-predatory animal has deep inside. Lesson learned. Oh, that and do not mess with a grumpy predator. I’m just sayin’…

Later that day, I am assigned a different crew to work with. These crews are usually made up of other “volunteers” who, like myself, fell afoul of the local City or State, law enforcement entities… In this case 6 local Hispanic gents whose English was poor and just barely better than the “spanglish” I learned living in and around L.A. most of my life. Me and the boys are assigned the dubious honor of cleaning out the aforementioned and recently vacated horse stalls, corral and, for added pleasure, cleaning of the ostrich pen, which housed two of these large and ill-tempered birds. The first thing I learned about the ostrich is the Spanish word for them which is “avestruz”. As I recall, there were a few other choice Spanish invectives added at the head of that word, but “avestruz” means Ostrich… Anyway, we are shown how to corral the ostriches on one side of the pen by herding them with a jury-rigged board just wide enough to cross the pen from side to side. Herd them to one side, clean that side… then swing the board slowly in a circle to move the ostriches to the other side and then clean that side. I assigned 3 guys to do this… One was assigned to each end of the board and one to monitor the ostriches’ movements so as to warn his buddies and/or call for help, should something untoward occur. It looked good on paper.

Side one got cleaned perfectly…easily. The board went in and isolated the birds to the left half of the pen and all the cleaning was done. But as the guys moved the Ostrich to the other half of the pen, I noticed the gate latch had not shut completely and the ostriches were being moved to the side where the gate was. I was almost a hundred yards away in the horse corrals. I saw the latch and looked at the ostrich. He looked at me, looked at the latch, looked at me and grinned. Beaks are not known to move into a grin… or a grimace for that matter, but I swear he did. He grinned… and ran for the gate. So did I. I vaulted out of the corral and sprinted toward the gate… It was gonna be close. Very close. I hit the gate just as he hit the gate. I weight over 200# and I have no idea how much a fully grown Ostrich weighs, but at out relative speeds we both packed a bit of a punch. Momentum is Mass x Velocity… he had more. We hit the gate together… I bounced and rolled and thudded to a stop some 8 feet away and watched as the Ostrich hauled high speed butt down the road and out of sight. It was at this point I realized the crew was watching me to see if I was still alive and relatively unhurt enough to sign their time slips. Once I regained both my feet and my composure we all had a good but short lived laugh. And then we realized the road the Ostrich ran down was headed off toward the Lion cages…

Just Friggin’ Awesome.

Now, not only am I the guy who let out the Ostrich… I also fed them to the Lions.

This is not going to look good on the resume.

After my head cleared from the tumble and the laughter, I had a thought which became a plan. Not a good one, mind you, but a plan. We had planned to tear down the wooden corrals and rebuild with fencing made out of 8’ hollow tubes with the ends pinched so that they can be bolted together. In my crazy, big-bird addled brain I’m thinking: “If we can head the Ostrich off at the pass before he gets to the lion cages, maybe we can herd him back toward the pen and the other Ostrich, perhaps getting him back into his newly cleaned pen.” Clearly optimistic, but it was what I had. So, I hastily communicated, using English, Spanglish, Mexican and the universal sign language of pointing, my plan of cutting off the Ostrich, surrounding him and herding him back down the road. After several rounds of blank stares, a Vegas sign full of light bulbs went off and everyone got it, except the Ostrich, of course.

Next Post - The Ostrich Part 2