One Flamingo Summer

Reading Time: 8 minutes

Guest Post by Al Coffman

On Easter weekend 2020 our small town was filled with tension as the government placed restrictions on the activities of daily living.  Many people had stopped going out to work, shop, or exercise.  They holed up in their homes, venturing out only for walks and a little fresh air.  People didn’t know what to do.  What was safe?  What was kind to others?  

I enjoy connecting with people in a store or on the street to share a smile, a joke, or an uplifting story, and most important, a little love.  How could I reach out to people when everyone nervously stayed at arm’s length?  One approach bubbled up spontaneously and blossomed over time.  

My wife noticed that the neighbors across the street had placed two large plastic flamingos on their front lawn.  We had two in our large backyard, one of which matched theirs—but these birds had never gone public.  We decided to surprise the neighbors and added a third flamingo to their pair on the sly.  That’s how it all began.  

My wife made three colored eggs and covered them with stars and ribbons.  On the night before Easter, I snuck across the street after dark and placed a decorated egg underneath each of the flamingos.  On Sunday morning we casually walked past as our neighbors laughed and pointed.  We made jokes, but claimed we knew nothing about large pink birds a-laying.  How funny!  This became part of the game: to pretend that we were as surprised as they about the flamingo plots that played out between our facing front yards.  We never let on that it was us—and they at least pretended to believe it.  

Two nights later, I replaced the Easter eggs with piles of broken shells, and in the midst of each I planted a 6” pink flamingo stir stick—the kind we used for summer coolers.  Babies!  A few days later the babies “grew up,” replaced by medium sized birds whose wings spun in the breeze.  Toddlers!  We continued to wander across the street, stare as if it was all new to us, and take pictures like tourists. 

We were running out of flamingos.  We called our friend Beth who ran the high school drama department.  She had two dozen full-sized flamingos and a handful of toddler “spinners” they used for fundraising.  Students would set them up in the dark of night, “flocking” a lawn—and then request a contribution to make them go away.  Soon after, they would approach neighbors who had been bird watching, and “demand” to be paid flocking insurance—to make sure their own lawns weren’t the next to sprout wings.   

A Flamingo Invasion!

We had our own ideas. A growing number of flamingos began to appear on our front lawn, slowly making their way towards the street.  Then they started crossing the road: a flamingo invasion!  People walking through the neighborhood noticed the flamingos at play.  Coming past our block to check for updates of the unfolding stories became a part of their daily routines. “What will happen next?” they wondered.  

Small children ran up, laughed, sat with the birds, and lingered as long as their parents would allow.  One little boy came by every day and kissed a baby flamingo on the head.  A tiny girl in a pink tutu balanced on one leg while her mother took a picture.  A woman in a burka with her daughter, dressed all in pink, posed for selfies. Adults pointed and smiled and took pictures, some of which showed up on Facebook.  Our dioramas had a growing audience!  

For grins I sent photos of our hijinks to my kin in Wisconsin.  A few days later my brother called to tell me that they were selling boxed flamingos in unusual poses at his local grocery store.  They had just gone on sale; which one would I like?  I said thanks, but the shipping costs would surely make it too pricey.  A week later, a mysterious package arrived.  Inside was a flamingo ‘guru’ sitting in lotus pose, with his wings clasped above his head. 

For the rest of that spring and summer new story lines unfolded.  Each shift in the diorama would last for two or three days before the next page of the story was revealed.  Now the guru made his grand entrance.  He flew over to the neighbor’s recently rebuilt front porch and sat looking out over their yard.  A couple of days later, the entire flock crossed the street and pressed up against the porch, hoping to get a glimpse of this wise bird.  

At this point the neighbors joined in, turning the gathering into a garden party with hats and ribbons.  Three flamingos stood around a card table playing poker, with empty drink bottles and snack containers littering the ground.  

The Wise One Moves to Center Stage

After a week of hard partying, the guru returned to center stage as he moved to the base of a maple tree.  Twenty large pink birds formed a long, winding queue, awaiting their turns for a personal consultation with the guru—and the opportunity for avian enlightenment.  For many days the guru held forth on weighty matters.  

Now the action shifted to our side of the street.  On the front lawn we staged a wedding ceremony that was officiated by the guru.  The many birds in attendance formed two lines to create an aisle leading to the altar.  A young flamingo couple dressed in fancy ribbons made a sober, steady, 14-day procession down the aisle.  Two spinners served as the flower girl and boy.  

One night we looked out to see a young couple taking turns sitting inside the wedding diorama, posing for pictures.  Another time we spotted a young man as he sat facing the guru.  He assumed the lotus position and began meditating.  Another couple brought a boom box and danced around the grassy stage.  

At last wedding vows were exchanged.  The front lawn turned into a dance floor, and flamingo couples gracefully frolicked the night away.  It got a little loud, but our understanding neighbors didn’t complain.    

On the Fourth of July, our neighbors re-arranged the flamingos into two lines, one on either side of the street.  One group of birds lined up along their curb, pink patriots adorned with American flags.  Facing them on our curb was a line of Tories flying British flags.  A feathered re-enactment of the American Revolution!  Early on the morning of the 4th, a real mother turkey and her teenage brood gamboled through the flamingos in a tribute to Benjamin Franklin, the founding father who felt the turkey should be our national bird.  

Over several evenings of neighborhood fireworks, some of the flamingos gradually ventured towards the street corners, and a couple of them began to make their way around the block.  My wife and I realized that things were getting out of control—we could lose birds that didn’t belong to us!  We had to reassemble the flock, so I brought in all of the flamingos except for the guru.  He assumed a stately perch atop the neighbors’ shiny new Airstream.

All was still for three days.  I used the time to compose a note which I printed in a font known as “Ransom.”  The text went like this: “If you want to see the flamingos again—alive—put 75 cents in unmarked coins in a plain envelope, and leave it underneath the guru.” 

Over the next few days I overheard our neighbor tell the ransom story to passersby several times: he thought it was hilarious.  So caught up in the story, he never glanced my way, not even the time I stood close by to listen in.  Then, as instructed, he paid up.  I snuck over and grabbed the dough under cover of night.  Several days later two flamingos appeared on his lawn with paper bags covering their heads. 

We went for a short walk around the neighborhood one afternoon, and chatted briefly with a couple we hadn’t met before.  They said, “We’ve decided this isn’t the summer of COVID, it’s the Summer of the Flamingo Invasion.”  It was then we knew that we had truly hit our mark.  

The flamingos flew south after Labor Day and over-wintered in our back yard.  Two weeks before the next Easter, three flamingos once again appeared on the neighbors’ lawn.  Not our birds, theirs.  The game was afoot—or should I say, on a foot.  The game, as it were, was all about sharing unconditional love when the opportunity presented itself.  

A New Adventure

A new adventure began as we made preparations to move to Mexico.  It was time for our flamingo brood to go home.  The flock assembled in our back yard and lined up to take a bath.  On a moonless night my wife and I and our daughter Flava, who was in town for a visit, decided it was time to pay a visit to the law firm of Flock and Flock—the home of the drama teacher, Beth.  

We circled Beth’s block at dusk, casing the joint.  How could we pull off our clandestine errand without being noticed?  We came round the block a second time, facing downhill and partially hidden by the neighbors’ hedge, and slowed to a crawl ten yards from her lawn.  Our parking spot was in a marked turn lane, but at this time of day there was little traffic.  No worries, eh?  Then, almost before we came to a stop, a police car pulled up behind us with its lights on.  

I watched through the rear-view mirror as my wife walked back to talk with the policeman.  He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say anything she whispered “Shhhhh!  Don’t say a word!”  He closed his mouth.  She put her hand on the officer’s shoulder and explained what we were up to.  “We’ll be done and gone in fifteen minutes.  You should drive past in a bit and see how it turned out.” 

He quietly whispered “Okay,” got in his cruiser, and drove away.  My wife was a cop whisperer.  

We could hardly contain our laughter as we hauled out bins full of birds and set to work.  In ten minutes we arranged a silent crowd facing the front door.  They waited patiently for our friend to walk to her car the following morning and head for school.  We stood at the curb and took in our fine handiwork, congratulating ourselves on our stealth.  It was then that Piper spotted the Ring doorbell—had our caper been recorded?  Piper called Beth the next day and they had a good laugh.  

As we made our way through decades of accumulated stuff, packing and cleaning the house, we needed to find new homes for many things.  I came across a tub of small rubber frogs.  “Where would you like to go?” I asked them.  The next morning, a dozen bright and colorful frogs appeared on the neighbor’s front lawn…

We didn’t have a grand plan to entertain our neighborhood.  It simply unfolded, one stealthy trip across the darkened street at a time.  Before we left town, I confessed to our neighbors that it had been us behind the hijinks the whole time.  Gauging by the looks on their faces, they believed me.  (But…who else could it have been?)  Then I alerted them to a potential infestation of lawn frogs.  

As spiritual beings, we thrive in community.  By giving to and receiving from one another, we create a flow of love—the currency of Holy Spirit.  When physical interactions are limited, acts of service to others are challenging, but if we fill ourselves with joy the creative impulse can move through us.  Love always finds a way.

Al Coffman has a long-time interest in researching the spiritual teachings of the world and discovering how they are related on the family tree of the Holy Spirit. How can they make our lives better and increase our capacity for love?

His current passion is capturing the events of daily life in writing and uncovering the insights they have to offer. Al is an aspiring author, avid reader, and international event coordinator. He loves to travel when given half a chance.