“Jumper! Get your a$$ back home!”……  That was the line that really caught my ear, and made me nearly cry, I was laughing so hard. But, let me go back to the beginning of the story.  

 

 
Last Sunday, Cathy and I were at the Bay. We didn’t really have anything to eat at the house, and decided to go out for lunch to one of favorite local places in St Michaels – Carpenter Street Saloon. We got there about one, and sat down. C-Street wasn’t particularly busy, and there were only a few of us at the bar. We ordered a couple of bloody’s and some lunch. The food came and it was as good as always. Some people left, some came in, and I guess at this point there were six or eight of us sitting around the U-shaped bar. One of the guys that came in later turned out to be a Volunteer fireman for both St Michaels and Tilghman Island, and had been one for something like 45 years. It turned out that his father has a house about half a mile from where we live on Tilghman, and he started telling stories about some of his time on the Bay.

He was a waterman and had done various jobs up and down the Bay. He started telling us about his time as a tugboat captain and he was taking his tug up to Baltimore. As they were crossing beneath the Bay Bridge, something came spiraling slowly down from the bridge above and plopped into the water just off the port side of the boat. They looked in the water and it was a very young pigeon. Evidently it had left the nest (tried to fly, was pushed, or jumped), but it didn’t really know how to fly yet and landed in the water. They netted the bird out of the Bay and brought him inside. He was alive but stunned. The captain decided to see if they could save the bird, so they dried it off and warmed it, and started feeding it. Oh, and they named it Jumper (figuring it had jumped out of the nest for good, or for ill).

Over time the bird got stronger and bigger, and the captain finally took Jumper outside to release him. Well sure enough Jumper could fly now, but after circling about, he came back and landed at the captain’s feet. He flew off a couple more times, but always came back, so he became something of a pet. The captain started taking him with him when he went down to work on his boat at the docks. As a matter of fact, Jumper would fly around down there, and occasionally pick up a screw or a bolt. He’d fly around with it a bit, and then drop it on the captain as he flew overhead.

Another time the captain was driving home from the end of Bar Neck and looked up and saw Jumper sitting on a telephone line above, with two doves sitting on each side of him. The captain got out of his car and yelled “Jumper! Get your a$$ back home!”. Jumper flew off and when the captain got home a few minutes later, there was Jumper sitting outside the house with a look of “Who Me???” on his face…

Jumper stayed on with him for about one and half or two years. Then one day Jumper was flying back and forth between the captain and his brother having fun, when a hawk swooped in and grabbed him and flew off. The captain ran inside to grab his gun, but by then the hawk, and Jumper, were long gone…. I suppose it’s a bit sad that Jumper met his fate that way, but I like to think he had a couple of pretty good years that never would have happened if they hadn’t netted him out of the Bay….

The captain (and others) told a couple of other stories, and the laughter around the bar was pretty good. It was a great way to spend a couple three hours there at C-Street. We finally paid our tab to Sarah behind the bar and headed back home.  

Since then, every time I think of Jumper and those doves sitting on the wire, I break into a smile…..

Pura Vida…     is a phrase we learned recently on a vacation with some friends in Costa Rica. It literally translates to “pure life”. But it means so much more, and is really about a way of life. Think in terms of carefree and optimistic….or “enjoy life”… Or “full of life”. The Ticos (what the Costa Ricans call themselves) use it as a greeting, saying hello, saying goodbye, giving thanks, or just commenting on what a great day it is. One dictionary translated it to “Life is wonderful; enjoy it”. And that is what we did in Costa Rica; enjoyed life.

On this vacation, while we visited some major attractions (The Arenal Volcano, and Manuel Antonio Parque), we stayed a bit off the beaten track. When in the Arenal region, rather than stay in one of the resorts in La Fortuna, we stayed in El Castillo, which was 30 minutes down a gravel road, with more than it’s fair share of potholes. El Castillo might have a couple hundred people who live there. Three or four restaurants, a couple of small hotels, a tiny market, a church, a soccer field, and a school…. That’s about it. But the people we met were all wonderful. At our lodging, in the restaurants, and just walking down the road. We were getting up early (6AM or so) to catch some birding and to see the sunrise on the volcano. We were walking up a road/path and meeting people who were starting their day “Hola…Buenos Dias….Pura Vida…”
 

 What was even cooler to see, was at 6:45 watching families take their kids to school on their motorcycles/ motorbikes. Either mom or dad would drive, and somewhere from one to three children would be on the bike with them. And always a smile, a greeting, a wave…..

When we went to Manuel Antonio, we also stayed a bit remote. Five of us shared a house that was about 45 minutes north of Quepos on a dirt road. The house had about 250 acres with it, so we had our own jungle. At night, it was pitch black. And the noise in the early evening and early morning was riotous. Unbelievable how many birds, insects, animals, whatever, were carrying on out there. We loved it and spent a couple of days there before heading into Manuel Antonio to do a mangrove tour, and later to tour the park and see the birds and animals. The tours were great, but we really enjoyed the remoteness, and the “localness” of where we were staying.

We plan to go back in the future, and when we do, we will probably log more beach time, stay at a hotel with a swim-up bar, and do a bit more restaurant hopping. For this trip, it was perfect the way it was. And I certainly have a much better understanding of Pura Vida. To quote from one of the guidebooks:

Pura vida! …. you need to consider that maybe…just maybe, your situation isn’t all that bad and that no matter how little or how much you have in life, we are all here together and life is short…so start living it “pura vida style”