Cardinal at the bird bath

9 July 2024

William Morrissey on Westmore Avenue

An hour ago I was walking on Westmore Avenue, on my way to Pharmaprix on Westminster Avenue, when a cardinal flew across the road; maybe he's here for the winter, or maybe cardinals stay all winter. Westmore was always my favourite street in this area, large lots, nicely kept Cape Cod houses, and quiet. In fact, in 1997 when we were looking at homes we looked at two houses on this block of Westmore; this was two years after the 1995 referendum on separation (we call the topic the "neverendum") and the bottom had fallen out of the real estate market; home owners were accepting rock bottom offers for their homes; what else could they do if they wanted to sell their home? Political instability will destroy the economy because business hates instability. Anyhow, those inexpensive homes from 1997 are now worth six or seven times what people paid for them, but it's almost thirty years later and house prices across the country have become prohibitively high. 

One day, years ago, my mother commented that back in the early 1950s my Uncle Bill lived on Westmore. I checked it out in Lovell's Montreal City Directory and there was his name, living in the house where the cardinal flew over the street earlier today. I think he and my Auntie Lill and possibly his son Bill Jr., stayed for a year in this house before buying a home in Ville St-Laurent. My mother was never critical of Young Bill but she was also never critical of anyone in the family.

My cousin, Young Bill, as opposed to Old Bill who was my uncle (this is how they were referred to), had been in the army in World War Two and had been part of the Canadian army that liberated Holland; his mother would speak to my mother and read her letters from Young Bill that described in detail the horrors of war. Young Bill was alcoholic and returned to Canada with possibly/probably undiagnosed PTSD; maybe when he was younger he also had Asperger's disease or ADHD, maybe that's how he would be diagnosed today. People were critical of Young Bill for his alcoholism that seems to have consumed his life. I've heard stories about him falling down drunk in the streets . . .  I don't know what became of his wife, the mother of his daughter Jo-Ann, she was never mentioned, but Uncle Bill and Auntie Lill raised Jo-Ann and she was very close to her grandparents and, as far as I know, estranged from her father. 

I haven't mentioned any of this before now; I didn't know Jo-Ann when she lived in Montreal but I got to know her on Facebook. I am sad to say that she died about a year ago. I never mentioned her father, Young Bill, to her, I felt he was persona non grata. 

This is the house at 5265 Westmore Avenue that Uncle Bill rented in 1950,
back then it would have been typical of other Cape Cod cottages, not renovated like it is now.

This is the grave of Lillian and Bill Morrissey at Mount Royal Cemetery;
their son, William Chipman Morrissey, is also buried here. He died on 27 February 1990.

William Morrissey in 1973

Cardinals visiting . . .

I wondered, if I play bird sounds (found online), will the birds respond? On my IPhone I played Cardinals singing, a minute later I heard real-life Cardinals responding; then, two Cardinals flew over my head and (see way down below) you can see one of the Cardinals sitting in a tree after I played "Cardinals, bird sounds", that's what you Google to get these sites, one in particular, "all about birds", is the site that I used. Cardinals are friendly birds and they aren't particularly shy. The first photographs below were taken when a Cardinal swooped down and sat in the bird bath. The final photos below were taken on the morning of 20 August from our dining room window.  

This Cardinal arrived after hearing the recorded Cardinal singing

This Cardinal responded to the sound of recorded Cardinals, he sat in a tree above me

Cardinals Visiting

 

Living with Animals

Last spring when I began working in the garden I wondered why birds and squirrels were afraid of me but not afraid of each other. Then I thought of Walt Whitman's poem (section 32 of "Song of Myself") about living with animals. Do we need to be like St. Francis of Assisi to be on friendly terms with animals? I soon realized the simple answer, just be outside a lot and the birds and squirrels will soon get used to you and not run from your presence. In fact, they'll ignore your presence. Today I began feeding the birds again for the winter. Soon I had a beautiful red cardinal and then chickadees arrived and then some squirrels who didn't seem to like each other. Here is Whitman's poem:

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are
so placid and self-contain’d,
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with
the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that
lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.
So they show their relations to me and I accept them,
They bring me tokens of myself, they evince
them plainly in their possession
I wonder where they get those tokens,
Did I pass that way huge times ago and negligently drop them?