By: Mark Thompson, Iowa City Lawyer

I’ll tell you about the time I killed a red-winged blackbird.

The country roads surrounding my hometown are teeming with red-winged blackbirds. These vicious birds sit atop the phone lines and call out to their buddies down the road, so that they are ready for you when you come by. They build their nests in the ditches, and figure that runners are coming to eat their young.

They will not bother you if you are running with a group. They focus their attack on the back of your head, and too many heads equals too many eyes to worry about, so they give up and merely chirp to scare you off. Also, a hat or bandanna will fool them into thinking you have multiple sets of eyes, so they’ll leave you alone then as well.

But I didn’t know any of this when I was running in the summers at home.So, one particularly hot day, mid-summer, I ran the Hog Buying route. Yes, we had a route called the Hog Buying. It was five miles. Coach would say “Today you’ll run Hog Buying.” It was common high school nomenclature. I’d say a good 50% of the runners thought it was the Hog Bine. What would that be? Some sort of mill where they grind up pigs? They never realized that the stinky building that we turned around at was an actual hog purchasing station.

So, I’m running the Hog Buying, with my road race t-shirt tucked around the shorts, moving along one of the S-turns just outside the town proper. The birds sent out their scouts, sounded the alert, the phone lines filled up like The Birds.

The avians hover right behind your head, chirping and screeching at you. When you turn around, they fly back. Face me, cowards. Then they begin their bombing runs. They swoop down and pull up right at your head, causing you to duck and yelp when you see their shadows merge with yours.

I turned around and took a few futile swings at the air. Then I thought, I adapted. I used the power that has put humans on top of the food chain. Be it from the monolith in 2001, or from natural selection, I developed a tool. My tool was my shirt.

I grabbed the tool, spun it around like a towel to slap an ass. It was heavy with sweat. I swung it madly at the birds, they laughed and continued their runs. I picked up the pace, swinging the weapon blindly behind me as I go. No luck. I needed to face my attackers.

Looking at the hot white gravel shoulder, I saw the shadow of the bird merge with the shadow of my head, I spun, running backwards. I swung the shirt, and smacked the bird as he pulled out of the dive, and caught him with the peak of my weapon’s arc. He spun out, like a TIE Fighter with its wing blown off, and crashed into the tall weeds of the ditch.

The remainder of his momentum was transferred to my shirt, to my arm, to my body, to my backpedaling feet and I fell backward onto the road, landing on my other wrist. I scrambled up, my wrist went numb, and I couldn’t move it.

So I ran back into town, numb hand hanging, and thinking about my first kill.

And I didn’t run a Hog Buying alone for the rest of the year.