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Back in 2005 my wife and I traveled to Arizona to spend an early Christmas with my oldest daughter and her family in Sedona. They always go up to Pennsylvania to SIL’s family for the real Christmas. We made the trip and as we were pulling up to the front of our house when we got home I noticed a large object sitting in the planter with a garbage bag over it next to the garage door. I went ahead and drove into the garage and my wife got out and went in to use the restroom. I was curious so I went over to the object and removed the garbage bag and I was shocked to see a real stuffed bald eagle. I was familiar with the ramifications of even possessing a single eagle feather let alone the entire bird and knew right away that I was in trouble. 
 

I moved it into the garage so that it would be out of sight and my wife came out and saw it and immediately fell in love with it. I had quite a collection of hand carved duck decoys in a display case in the house and she thought the eagle would be a great addition. I let her know the consequences of being caught with an eagle in my possession and she told me just to not tell anybody and she named it Baldy. Well federal prison wasn’t on my bucket list so I called up the California Dept. of Game and Fish and told them about the mystery bald eagle and they told me to call the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. I called them and everyone was out of the office because it was in the evening and I left a message on their voicemail. If I remember correctly at 9:00am sharp I got a call from this African American gentleman that wanted to know about the eagle. I could tell that he didn’t believe me and thought that I was pulling a prank. So I told him the story about coming home and finding it and his exact words were (they were etched into my memory) “So you expect me to believe that a stuffed bald eagle magically appeared in front or your house while you were away?” I said yep that’s what happened and he says “Yeah right.”

 

I asked him if he wanted to come up to where I live and pick it up and he said no, I’m going to bring it to him. This was just a few days before Christmas, remember, and him and most of the office were going to be on leave until after Christmas so I made arrangements to bring the eagle down to the Fish and Wildlife offices in downtown San Diego on the 28th of December. I didn’t realize that Oklahoma and Oregon were going to be playing in the Holliday Bowl the next day so downtown was crowded with Oregon and Oklahoma football fans. I found a parking spot not far from the front of the Fish and Wildlife offices in downtown and went up to the 4th floor and told the receptionist what I was there for and who I needed to see. Out comes this guy who looks like he could play linebacker for both of the above mentioned teams, he was tall and looked like he was solid muscle and he comes out and says “So you’re the eagle man.” To say I was nervous and intimidated would be an understatement because I’d tossed and turned all night wondering what tomorrow would bring and if I’d be spending nights in the Graybar Hotel.

 

The guys name was Wendel, if I remember right and he said “Let’s go see your eagle.” So I told him that we’d need a cart to haul it on because it was bulky and awkward to carry so he rounded up a 4 wheeled cart and we took the elevator down to street level and made our way through all of the football fans out to my SUV. I opened up the rear hatch and he said “You weren’t just a $***+++ng me were you?” Well we unloaded this stuffed bald eagle and put it on the cart and I’m pretty sure it was the first bald eagle on first street in San Diego in a long time and the OU and Oregon fans were mobbing us taking pictures and asking questions. We fought our way through the crowds into the building and there were like 3 or 4 Oklahoma fans that followed us into the building into the elevator and up to the 4th floor, the security people let everybody through in the lobby, it was crazy.

 

Once we get up to the 4th floor Wendel chases the football fans off and escorts them onto the elevator. You’d a thought the other Fish and Wildlife people there had never seen a stuffed bald eagle before. Of course everyone wanted to hear the story and every one of them was skeptical , it was obvious with their comments and questions. So Wendel escorts me into this little interview room that feels like a meat locker it’s so cold and sits Baldy down on the table and gives me some forms to fill out and a tablet to write down how I became the not so proud owner of a stuffed bald eagle. I must have repeated the story five or six times to people that would come in and introduce themselves and check out old Baldy. Wendell came in with a camera and took my picture by the deal on the wall that has the measurements on it and a couple of shots with me and Baldy and every time somebody came into the room they’d have to tell me a story about]t the time they busted somebody for having eagle feathers or other eagle parts. I was at the point where I was really thinking I’d never see my Temperpedic  mattress again. 
 

Wendel came in one time and proceeded to tell me that Baldy was from Mexico. I asked him how he could tell that and he produced a picture of the Mexican flag and sure enough the wings on Baldy were positioned just like the wings on the eagle on the flag. He also told me that it was still legal back then to hunt and kill bald eagles in Mexico but it was illegal to bring them into the U.S. I remember asking him if they tasted like chicken and he told me that I didn’t want to find out. I truly believe that he enjoyed putting the fear of going to federal prison in me because he told numerous stories about arrests that he had made over the years from just driving along and seeing somebody with an eagle feather hanging from their rear view mirror, visiting craft shows where eagle feathers and parts were being illegally sold and stuff like that. 
 

I had got there at 9:00 sharp and it was lunchtime and I’d gone out to use the restroom once or twice and they brought me coffee and water and were nice to me. Wendel had disappeared for awhile and came back with a brown paper bag with some Philly cheesesteak sandwiches and chips. He sat down and gave me a sandwich and chips and he opened up a sandwich and I took a bite of mine and I told him where those sandwiches came from. He asked me how I could possibly know that and I told him that I’d spent 4 1/2 months up at UCSD Medical center in 1992 with numerous spinal operations and related problems that developed. I told him that once I had come out of my medically induced 6 week coma and learned how to eat and swallow again my wife would come down to that deli and get me those sandwiches and painstakingly feed me small bites so that I didn’t choke on it and get it in my lungs. His entire demeanor changed after I told him about my months at the hospital and all of the setbacks that I’d gone through.

 

We finished lunch and talked awhile more and he instructed me to be sure and let him know if I ever found out where the eagle came from. I was and still am very bad about carrying a cellular phone with me so I couldn’t call my wife and tell her what was going on and why I was so late coming home. With the downtown traffic and stuff I didn’t get home until nearly 4:00. My wife met me in the kitchen and after I told her about my day she told me that she found out how the eagle got to the front of the house.
 

My wife’s sister and bother in law did an early Christmas trip up to their daughter’s place in Northern California. The son in law was a game warden for The California Dept. of Fish and Game and there was a high school somewhere up there that had the bald eagles as their teams name. Someone had donated the stuffed eagle to the school and it was displayed in their trophy case. He confiscated it and sat it on a shelf in a storage room attached to their garage and hadn’t had the opportunity to turn it in to Fish and Wildlife for disposal so her sister and BIL stuck it in the back of their car and brought it down and stuck it in the front of our house thinking that it would look right at home with my duck decoy collection. I don’t think her sister ever forgave me for turning Baldy over to the Feds. I called Wendel the next day and told him how it got there and he thanked me for letting him know and the SIL,BIL or son in law weren’t in any trouble and I told him that the next time a stuffed bald eagle shows up in front of my house that he’d be the last to know. 
 

We’ve got pictures of the eagle around here somewhere and if I ever find them I’ll resurrect this thread and post them.

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Posted

Dear Lord!

THAT was an ordeal!

I'm reminded of that great prophet of the previous century, Erma Bombeck, who correctly observed, "No good deed goes unpunished!"

VERY glad you got to see your Tempur Pedic that night!

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