A Murder Of Crows

There was a murder, they hung out by our house back where I grew up, back down in the woods, we lived with it every day. My Daughter as a child, before she could talk, she spoke crow. Now I know a writer could drive more interest, writing about roosters, rather than chickens, writing about bulls, rather than cows. So where did I learn all this, and why is it important you ask, where am I trying to go with this,? hell, I’m just trying to figure a way to start writing about crows, find out where these crows might figure into this mix of things! When I was working in LA, building a Cathedral, in the late afternoon, as us workers left the site, the crows would settle in. Another Murder Of Crows! Those black crows, back home, back behind our house, back down in the woods, always battled with the squirrels, I don’t know, maybe it was the other way around, anyway, it always seemed to me to be about territory! As the day wound down, the sun hung low, they’d settle in on the re bar, a murder gathering across the forms, crows, noisy, a gang, settling in for the night. Some days, across the job site radios, you’d hear Cardinal on site! No cursing!!! A lot of difficulty getting this job rolling, a Native American Burial Site was unearthed, an archaeological site on land intended for the new Catholic Cathedral. I wanted to make photographs of these crows laying claim to the site at night. The Church had some difficulty in justifying construction on this sacred indian land. At every attempt to photograph, I was turned away, I was a working carpenter on the job, one of about 200, I was a little younger then, a lot more stubborn. I went up through the chain, starting with my foreman, at each turn hearing no. No one wanted to ask the question for me, to make an inquiry, to gain me access from the owner. I didn’t spend a whole lot of time on this, didn’t want to beat it to death, quick to see these people didn’t get it, if it wasn’t about building a church, it was out of their box. Two hundred carpenters out on a job, that’s a lot of personality, a lot of young guys, making lots of noise, showing their boss there getting things done. I got lucky, a foreman that knew what’s up, the panels we used were custom built, not a right angle on the job. Huge concrete forms, they were perfect, I think the guys name who ran the yard was Eddie!