NATURE STILL AROUND US

Years  ago,   an  angry  judge  anxious  to  not  let  a  case  in  his  courtroom  go  unresolved  put  the  case  last  on  the  night's  calendar,  and  forced  a  full  trial  of  the  matter.  At  4:00  a.m.,  the  case  concluded.   I  represented  Defendant.  I  don't  remember  if  my  side  prevailed.

As  I  tiredly  drove  through  the  warm  spring  darkness  up  Evesham  Avenue  and  turned  into  Camden  Avenue  toward  home  after  the  trial,  I  saw  the  distinct  outline  of  a  quail  in  the  middle  of  the  street  in  front  of  me,  and  I  heard   a  bird  sound  I  hadn't  heard  in  40  years ... "There's  Bob  White;  There's  Bob  White ..."  The  bobwhite  quail  call.

Back  around  the  early  1960s,  each  Summer,  I  and  my  brothers  and  sisters  would  sometimes  spend  about  two  weeks  on  the  farm  of  our  grandparents  in  Evesboro,  now  part  of  Evesham  Township.  The  farm  was  about  7  acres  on  what  was  then  called  Hog  Pond  Road,   now  North  Elmwood  Road  between   Church  Road  and  Medford-Evesboro  Road.  I  used  to  enjoy  getting  up  in  the  wee  hours  of  the  morning  at  the  farm,   opening  the  bedroom  window,  and  listening  to  the  sounds  of  the  rural  dawn.  At  a  particular  point  I  told  my  grandmother  that  I  liked  to  hear  the  lonely  whistle  of  a  bird  I  heard  every  morning  at  the  same  time  --  three  tones,  "peep,  peep,  PEEP!  Peep,  peep,  PEEP!"

"Oh,"  Grandmom  said,   "That's  the  bobwhite.  It's  a  quail  that  lives  around  here.   It's  called  a  'bobwhite'  because  when  it  peeps,  it  sounds  like  its  saying,  'There's  Bob  White!  There's  Bob  White!'"

Grandmom's  explanation  stuck  with  me.   And  so  I  was  all   the  more  amazed  to  hear  the  bobwhite's  dawn  call  to  me  that  morning  in  much-more-urban   Magnolia.

I  let  the  bobwhite  cross  the  street  in  front  of  my  car,  and  went  home.