JUDGE GARDNER -- The Verdict

The other day I was sitting in the backyard in a little spot of sun

when I heard a bunch of birds squawking. If I hadn’t known better, I

would have sworn it was a bunch of parrots. I didn’t wait to identify the

birds, though. I ran immediately in the house for safety.

It may seem strange to be so cautious, but birds have it in for me.

It all started back in the 1920s when I was a little kid living in

Balboa. I had a friend named Albert Spencer and we were both interested

in shore birds. Any time his folks let us, we borrowed their rowboat and

headed for Shark Island. This was long before the area was dredged and

misnamed Linda Isle.

Instead of a lot of big houses with big boats in front of them, it was

a sandy island on which shore birds nested. We rowed from the White

Bridge Beach, since misnamed the Montero Street Beach, to look at the

eggs in their nests. Our intentions were purely innocent. We made notes

of the eggs, their colors and the types of birds attached to each type of

egg. We never touched a thing.

The birds, however, were not receptive to us, innocent or otherwise.

They would fly around making little worried noises, then suddenly there

would be a screech, and they’d dive bomb us. Instead of actually hitting

us, just before crashing into our heads, they’d drop a full dose of bird

poop on our heads, then veer off. We’d come home looking like those

guano-covered islands off the coast of Chile.

Those shore birds must have put out the word because since then I have

been the target more times than I can remember.

One day back in the 1930s, I was the only one out at San Onofre. There

I sat on my redwood and balsa board, miles of empty ocean all around. A

sea gull got me right on the head. If I go to the beach today, it’s like

I’m wearing a bull’s eye. It doesn’t matter how many other people are

there, how closely we’re crowded together, I’m the one the sea gull hits.

It even affected my love life. When I was in college, I was talking to

a girl I was interested in. She was sitting in her car, and I had my foot

on the running board with a book balanced on my knee. A bird flew over,

said, “Ah, there’s Gardner,” and let loose. This particular bird wasn’t

quite as expert as some of his fellow birds. He missed my head and hit

the book, and bird poop splashed all over the girl’s face. End of

romance.

So when I hear a flock of birds like that, I head for the house.

To my amazement, I found out later that there actually is a flock of

parrots in Corona del Mar. I don’t know if parrots converse with sea

gulls. They may just have been saying, “Hey, there’s some great peaches

on the Jones’ tree,” but with my luck, they were saying, “Let’s get

Gardner.”

I’m not taking any chances.

* ROBERT GARDNER is a Corona del Mar resident and a former judge. His

column runs Tuesdays.