I stood on the bridge on Ridout Street on my way home Saturday night trying to discern if the flash of bright red I saw on a branch overhanging the water’s edge was a cardinal, as I had seen many of them on my walks to and from work. If it was, it would have been the brightest that I had seen. Now trying to figure this out is not so easy for me because as anyone who really knows me knows that I am farsighted (? I never get it right, but I can only see close up unless I am wearing glasses, which I never do) So, here I am standing on the bridge, squinting at this little bit of red when my eyes travel lower, to the water below that branch. I see a mallard duck. He’s swimming, or paddling, but not going anywhere. I watch for a few minutes and when I see no change in his position, I begin to wonder if something isn’t wrong. The way I figure it, I have a few choices. I can continue on my way and call the city when I get home to have them check to see if he is okay, I can continue on my way and figure that he will somehow get himself out of whatever it is that he has gotten himself into, I can try to get down the steep embankment and see if I can figure out what is wrong or there is a fisherman who has waded further down the river that I can try to get to help. I know in my heart that I cannot go home and pretend that I didn’t see him; I will just worry all night. Calling the city would seem silly and I can’t be sure that they would do anything. So, over to the other side of the street and down the bike path I went, not really sure what it was that I was going to do. When I got there, I could see that the duck had somehow become entangled in a piece of string and could not swim away. I could not get down the embankment and the fisherman was nowhere in sight. So I went in search of him. I found him further down and must have seemed a little off the wall when I asked him if he could backtrack and rescue the duck. I explained that he would not have to get too close as the string was long enough that he could cut it and hopefully the duck would be able to free himself at some point from the string hanging from his foot. Thankfully, he agreed and we went on our rescue mission. He managed to free him from the branch where he was tethered and he swam away with the fishing line, as it turned out to be, attached to his foot and floating behind him. I hope he didn't get snagged in anything else before he got that line off his foot.
I believe, in this life, it’s not always what you do but sometimes what you don’t do that defines your character. I could not go home knowing that a helpless creature was being held captive because of someone’s carelessness. I would bet most people would have had no problem is carrying on with their lives not giving the duck a second thought. Not me, not the woman who stops to talk to turtles and says good morning not only to the man who walks by every morning but a separate good morning to his dog that he is always walking.
On to my next thought… When I was going back, looking to make sure that the duck had swam away, I noticed in the middle of the river, a shopping cart. Now I have lived in London for a very long time and I am sure that there are no shopping malls along the river’s edge so I don’t think it could have rolled down a hill on its own and ended up in the river. So anyway, I was thinking. You know how they have the “adopt a highway” thing where your group takes care of a little piece of highway and makes sure that the garbage is picked up and it remains clean? I know it’s big in the States, in fact I think it was the storyline in one of the Seinfeld episodes. I was thinking why don’t they have an “adopt a river” program? At this time of year, the water level is so low that if handled properly, people could go and clean things like shopping carts and old tires out of the river. We also have a cadet population that has the rubber rafts for the parts that are a little deeper. We are lucky to have a river that runs right through our city, why don’t we seem to care? I guess I’m just tired of the mentality that “I didn’t mess it up, why should I clean it?” Our mothers wouldn’t have stood for that attitude long or at least mine didn’t. lol Any ideas on who I would present the Adopt a River idea to?

Anyway, things to do right now so have a good day kids….