The ancient bird

We were in the midst of one of those late winter storms that Minnesota has when I saw him. It was one of those storms that dumps heavy, wet snow and blows it around in blasts of icy needles that sting your face and takes your breath away. As I stepped out through the door of the hospital where I work, the wind lunged at me, and I set off running for the bus shelter with one hand on my hat and the other gripping my briefcase. My face burned from the cold. Behind me the big fl...

This is one of my Grandfather stories, but without the Raven. It was inspired by a wildlife incident, recorded on NHK, the Japanese public television network, about a young female deer that had fallen through the ice on a Hokkaido lake. She was being harassed by a flock of hungry crows who were trying to knock her down. She lifted herself up onto the shore and went into the forest. In my story she appears at a farm owned by Grandfather Ueda. The story begins from there. 

Grandfather and the D...

The Grocery Thief

I don't think there's a human being alive who is familiar with crows and ravens who doesn't think of them as thieves.

They rummage through garbage, steal crops from farmers, steal eggs from the nests of other birds, and kill their young.

Ask most anyone what their opinion is of ravens and crows and they respond reflexively “They're noisy, and they're all thieves and robbers.”

Then, with...

Since it was a beautiful, sunny day, grandfather decided to walk along the Motsukisamu River, which was near the condominium where he and grandmother lived.

As he was leaving, grandmother said: “Now, you be careful of those dogs that run around there, because they bark, and they've been known to bite, especially one of them. That little monster is a vicious little gray devil with very sharp teeth, who has b...

Pavlov's man was my friend. We worked together for several years in an office in Seattle, Washington. In fact, we started there on the same day. He got a big corner office, and I got the office next door. His office came equipped with a large saltwater fish tank in which there were four or five fish. I only recall four of them: Pavlov, a spiny box puffer named Yoda, a small, gray, nondescript fish, and a small red-and-bl...

Grandfather and the Deer

One

          One morning when grandfather and grandmother were visiting his younger brother on the family farm, grandfather looked out the window and said:

          “Look, broth...