You Get The Picture

Ideally, I would read this essay to you because it has a “pace” that paints a picture of how my mind works, sputters, overcorrects and misfires. But lacking such a luxury (although maybe someday I’ll share a video of me reading it), I’ll ask you to read it quickly, as though these words are coming out of someone’s brain in real time and in a rush … which is exactly what happened when I wrote it.

It was a cloudless day, not something we see often in the Upper Midwest in late February. It was also unseasonably warm, which was a bonus. So, I decided to go for a late-morning walk, opting for a light sweatshirt in lieu of a jacket, a fact that has nothing to do with the story, by the way.

As I hit my stride and lost myself in whatever I was listening to (probably ‘70s music), I was stopped dead in my tracks when something hit me. It was wet, and it landed just above my right eye. Before I had a chance to wipe it away, my mind went back many, many years, to a summer day when I was riding my bike through our neighborhood.

On said morning, also a cloudless day, the eight-year-old me (I’m estimating, but I think that’s correct given I remember I was wearing my favorite shirt––one with orange and brown horizontal stripes––and riding my Sears & Roebuck Purple Stingray knock-off replete with banana seat and chopper handlebars) was doing what I did most summer mornings: riding as fast as I could and either talking or singing to myself aloud. If you want reference for what and who I was at that time, think of a mashup of Opie Taylor (Andy Griffith Show), Bobby Brady (Brady Bunch) and Nicholas Bradford (Eight Is Enough).

As I rode and talked (or sang, and if I was singing, it was probably something like Time of the Season by The Zombies or Downtown by Petula Clark, which was also my first-ever favorite song), I suddenly felt something wet hit me just above my right eye. (I know, coincidence, right?)

Back then, with no previous memory of having something wet fall out of a cloudless sky and situate itself above my right eye, on that fateful, bike-riding summer morning I immediately wiped it away. I then wiped whatever it was on my pants. I then looked at my pants––specifically, the site of the wiping––and noticed it was bird poop.

I then started to cry.

Why did I cry? A couple of reasons. First, when I was eight, I cried a lot and usually about things that didn’t matter. I cried when my mom served something I didn’t like for dinner. I cried when my older sisters went to a Neil Diamond concert and didn’t take me with them. I cried when I found out I had to go to the dentist. Then, I cried at the dentist. I also cried when I found out I needed a haircut because the barber shop was located in the same building as my dentist, so, of course, I thought my mom was lying to me just to get me to go to the dentist without crying and making a scene. (She wasn’t … lying, that is.)

I could go on, but you get the picture.

Second, when you’re eight you have no idea if bird poop is dangerous, or if maybe it was your fault that a bird pooped on you. Or maybe it was a curse that befell young boys who talked and sang to themselves. Or worse yet, maybe someone saw it happen and would make fun of you for the rest of your life, and give you a nickname that would stick, like “Poophead” or “Bird crap” or something much more creative. And maybe those people would tell your dentist and your barber, and then they would make fun of you too when you entered their places of business crying and whining.

OK, this is getting away on me.

What I’m saying is, at that age, you don’t have any sense about anything ... at least I didn’t. I guess that’s why my favorite shirt was one with orange and brown horizontal stripes.

Back to the “near-present” day in question: my unseasonably warm, cloudless walk through the neighborhood, which (not for nuthin’) paired perfectly with my light sweatshirt  After the childhood “bird poop” memory passed (and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did recounting for you), I tentatively daubed the wet substance (“fool me once,” and all that) and hesitantly took a look.

It was water.

Now, while I was relieved it was water and not bird poop (though for the record, bird poop would not have made me cry; I’ve evolved, and besides, there are so many other things that make me cry nowadays I really don’t have the time or energy to sob about bird poop on my head), I was puzzled as to the water’s origin. So, I asked myself (because in case you’re wondering, I still talk and sing to myself every chance I get), “Where could that water have come from?”

Come to think of it, there’s no way I used those words; more than likely, it was something like, “What the hell? Water? Seriously?”

At any rate, it was a mystery. I looked up to verify that no clouds––and I mean NO clouds––were in the sky above me. I also made sure that I had not walked under any trees or eaves or anything else that might drip or leak water.

So, I kept walking (and talking … and singing, now with tunes like Rainy Days and Mondays [The Carpenters] and Laughter In The Rain [Neil Sedaka] in my head) and wondering. And in subsequent days, that incident (wait, is incident too much?)  would pop up again and again.

Even now, weeks later, I don’t know how that drop of water found my head. Where did it come from? Was it actually water? And if it wasn’t, what was it? And now, unlike my whiny, eight-year-old Opie/Bobby/Nicholas self, I kind of wish it would have been bird poop; at least then I would have had an explanation … and closure.

Instead, I’m left with nothing but questions, some of which I’ve shared with you. And while I don’t need answers (often, wondering and speculating––two more things I often do aloud and to the chagrin of those around me––is more fun than knowing), it would be nice to know if that “water” was something dangerous, much like I wondered if that bird poop was dangerous when it hit my ugly-yet-completely-decade-appropriate orange-and-brown striped shirt all those years ago.

And when I think back on that incident (the bird poop, not the mysterious water), I have to admit, it does bring a tear to my eye … because it reminds me of a simpler time. A time when a kid could be left alone with his bike, his thoughts, his ugly shirt and his favorite songs running through his head.

As for the water, I’ll continue to wonder, not knowing or caring if I ever get an answer. For now, I’ll just say, “Maybe it was magic.”

And now, I’m singing all kinds of songs that have the word “magic” in them. But I won’t share them. You get the picture.

© 2026 David R. Haznaw