.He ruled the prison in the darkness. I believed him to be heaven sent. I knew he was hunting here in our gardens by his regurgitated fur balls of bones, teeth, claws, and feathers. I found them on the ground next to the housing units. We had a rodent problem which was kept in check by his insatiable eating habits. Rats, mice, voles, birds, and rabbits would meet him for the last time becoming his regurgitated burp. Our produce was well protected. He perched on the housing units roof top ledges and only came out at night. The prison was lit up with security lights at night, and that’s when he would be observed by the afternoon yard officers. They said his talons scraping on the metal roof ledge was a formidable sound and a foreboding for his unexpecting prey. I would get reports of him even chasing inmates who were walking the edge of our gardens. I figured there must be a nest somewhere, and he new where the rats were.
.On a sunny summer morning I had come in early to begin setting up for the days GED testing. I didn’t make it past the chow hall before the yard sergeant motioned me over to a walkway leading between two housing units. At the end of the walkway I saw a pile of feathers. The yard sergeant explained that an owl with large yellow eyes, and talons swooped out of nowhere and grabbed a seagull. The owl had his back to the chow hall but turned his head in what seemed to be 360 degrees, a complete circle, and looked directly at the yard sergeant. The yard sergeant could not believe it. He said the owl looked at him with those big yellow eyes, as if saying to him, “you are next,” defeathered the seagull, and ate him. The owl then flew over the barb wire fences into a field surrounded by trees. I could see him at a distance perched on the top of what appeared to be a dead limb. I thought from that distance he seemed huge. The pile of feathers left on the sidewalk was confirmation of the event.
.The owl continued to hunt our gardens for over five years. On a sunny day while one of my tutors was planting a shade garden under one of our crimson king maple trees with two of our students the owl made his presence known. He looked at them, hooted, and then flew over the fences into the trees in front of the prison. They were amazed at its’ size. I didn’t hear about him until a few weeks later when our yard sergeant informed me that an owl hit his car as he was exiting the freeway for the prison. It was chasing a rabbit. In the crash the owl took off the side view mirror, cracked the window and dented the door of his jeep. He couldn’t believe the size of it but it definitely died in the collision. He picked it up and put it in his jeep. All he thought about was how good this would look mounted in his man cave.
.When he got off work he went to the local office of the Department of Natural Resources. He was hoping they would let him keep it since it crashed into his jeep. He was going to find a taxidermist and have it mounted. The DNR Officer was sympathetic, especially after seeing the damage to his jeep, but he informed him it was a protected species, even though it was now deceased. The DNR Officer wrote a report, took pictures of the damage to his jeep, confiscated the owl after taking several pictures, and handed a copy of the report back to our yard sergeant. Attached to the report was a Kodak picture of the owl. He informed our yard sergeant that was the best he could do for him. The report and pictures would help him get his jeep fixed through his insurance company.
.Our yard sergeant not wanting to seem ungrateful asked the DNR Officer if he could take one more picture of him standing next to the owl which had a bit of rigor mortis by now ?The DNR Officer propped up the owl in the corner of the room and our yard sergeant got to stand next to him for the portrait. I was hoping it was not our owl but when he showed me the DNR report, the pictures of the damage to his jeep, and the portrait picture of him with the owl, my heart sank into my stomach. It definitely looked like our owl. All I could think of was the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. The rodent population might get a whole lot worse now. It seemed selfish on my part to think like that. There should be some kind of ceremonial burial. A warrior’s burial! The yard sergeant informed me the DNR planned on having the owl mounted for one of its nature centers. So much for that. >>>Prison Stories To Be Continued>>> EPHESIANS 1: 15-23
MJ-Way 