Bird Droppings July 5, 2026
All about how you feed the wolves

I walked outside very early this morning to a sky filled with stars and wisps of clouds floating by. Crickets were almost together, chirping slowly in the cool morning. My morning started long before sunrise today, and the sounds I heard as I walked to the car caught my attention. Nearby, a coyote was calling, and an owl’s call added to the moment. Half a moon was visible through drifting pieces of clouds. I set my goal to get some photos, get home, post, and crash, as we got back relatively late from a July 4th family gathering, in time to write and think, with so many thoughts going through my mind today as I sat listening to an old track on iTunes. Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks is considered by many to be one of his best albums. I picked up my phone, and a note was visible on the lock screen. It was a thank-you comment from a former student from twenty-two years ago. What a great start to my morning.

So here I am remembering a situation from eleven years ago. There are times when it is hard to put into words, whether because of confidentiality or emotion; maybe words do not describe it well enough, and yet pictures are not suited to define it either. A large display of Georgia Bulldog marketing materials, cups, flags, caps, and stuffed bulldogs reminded me of a past trip. It was several years ago that I went to Kroger after school to pick up a few things to make spaghetti, the universally accepted meal in our house. The parking lot was packed from one end to the other, so I parked about twenty miles from the door. I read that it is a good way to get exercise, adding a few more steps to your day. After finding all I needed and visiting with at least half a dozen friends I bumped into, I started up the book aisle, which is habit. It was packed, and everyone was in line. A rather assorted bunch of folks were standing in what appeared to be a line.

I carefully went back and down another aisle toward checkout, and as I reached the front of the store, several men in black suits stood almost at attention beside a table stacked with books. My initial thought was it was Sarah Palin’s book signing, but I knew she would be in a more strategic location than Loganville Kroger, and while she is popular, there were a lot of people here. Then I saw this older man, who is still spry for an old codger, sitting, shaking hands, and signing his latest book. I had forgotten about Vince Dooley Day at Kroger. Dooley is somewhat of an icon in this area. Vince Dooley was the former head coach and athletic director of the University of Georgia Bulldogs. Where else but in Loganville would thousands of people swarm a grocery store to get an autograph from Mr. Bulldog himself? Being an avid Georgia Tech fan, I walked by nose in the air and paid for my groceries.

But the events of the week so far and thinking back had me recalling an old email I received nearly twenty-one years ago. The story goes something like this. One evening, an old Cherokee told his grandson about a debate that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.” The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?” The old Cherokee replied, “The one you feed.” I received this note from a parent of a former student.

As I thought back and read over this simple story again, I was thinking about how children respond to various situations, and how we adults then commend or condemn them. Those two words are so closely spelled yet so far apart in meaning and understanding. I recall one morning a young lady came in and was visibly upset, but more of a moping kind of upset. It seemed her boyfriend and she were sort of at odds. I shared the Thomas Merton quote I have hanging on my wall and have used here so many times.

“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we see in them.” Thomas Merton

I asked the young lady to look up Merton, see some of his other writings, and find out who he was, which she did before school. Then she left with a copy and a Kent Nerburn book, Calm Surrender. As we talked, I thought of this quote about the wolves inside of us and how we are all fighting, as she told me about conflicts in her life and in her boyfriend’s as well.

Several days back, my wife and I were discussing kids, as we tend to, and the topic of learned behavior came up. We teach kids through our actions and inactions, and yet we punish them for the same thing. An attorney was on TV saying parents who knew kids were drinking at a party at their house should not be held responsible for any actions of drunken teenagers. The discussion was a point-counterpoint discussion, and then the other side mentioned that the person involved in the accident had been arrested previously for DUI, and that the parents knew that, so a history was established. So I sat listening to this back and forth: an underage drinking party led to a teenage driver killing a child. The underage drinker who was driving had left the party at that particular parent’s home with their knowledge; he was drunk and had been drunk previously. Both parties were found guilty. On the one hand, the defense attorney was saying kids will be kids, and on the other, a dead child.

So often in life, we are faced with what-ifs. We recognize behavior as dangerous or potentially dangerous, yet we tend to shrug it off. A headline yesterday caught my eye: the industry is turning its nose up at incidents that do not cause major damage or injury. Coming from an industrial safety background, I found that these incidents led to breakthroughs in safety and loss control. A headline down was about women not getting mammograms anymore till fifty, and on the news, many women were up in arms who had breast cancer and whose family members were saved by early detection. I recall a young man I worked with back in the 1970’s and how, on many occasions, I had requested an evaluation and was told to keep out of it; the young man had a learning disability only. After I married and moved to Loganville, I let him spend the summer with me and work on our farm. Sadly, a few years later things changed, and he was arrested and sentenced to three life sentences. He had killed a woman and seriously injured her two kids, wanting to return to Central State Mental Hospital. Commend and condemn are so similar yet differing in meaning.

I look back at the story, which wolf is being fed. We, as parents, teachers, friends, and others, need to be more actively involved in preventing such situations. Whether it be teenage love or teenage drinking, there is harm being done around the corner and often under our noses. Please keep all in harm’s way on your minds and in your hearts and always give thanks. Namaste.

My family and friends, I do not say this lightly,
Mitakuye Oyasin
(We are all related)
docbird