I was a very naive child. I wasn’t really stupid, just sheltered and trusting. My mother always made me play outside while she watched her soaps, read Harlequin romances, and talked on the party line. My sister Rhonda was four years older than me and was usually off playing with friends, leaving me alone to entertain myself. I talked and sang to myself, explored my back yard as if it were uncharted territory, and had funerals for dead grasshoppers in little matchbox coffins lined with clover. And when someone told me something I believed it was truth. If my sister told me to eat the mud pie she’d made or she’d tell Mom and I’d get a whippin’, I ate the mud pie. I ate a bunch of mud pies when I was young. But I must confess that selling birds’ nests was an idea all of my own.

I used the finest dried grass clippings blown from the lawnmower and the mud I’d come to know so well. I formed the nests with the utmost care to make them just like the birds did. I figured everyone would want to buy a nest - maybe even two or three - for the birds that came to their yards. I would make a killing! I carefully placed them all along the branches of the elm tree in our front yard, right by the road where everyone could see them as they drove by. I even made a “Birds’ Nests for Sale” sign.

After a while, my best friend Sara, who lived a few doors down, came over and saw my display all nicely arranged. She then proceeded to bust my sweet, innocent bubble. Sara was actually a year younger than I was, but her parents taught her the ways of the world. My parents let me find out about the world all on my own, just for the laughs, I think. Thankfully, Sara wasn’t afraid to clue me in. “People won’t buy birds’ nests that you make”, she said matter-of-factly. With my innocent look of bewilderment I asked, “Why not?” She said, “Because birds make their own nests and they don’t need nests from people.” Let me tell you, I was shocked and totally disheartened. All that work! My heart and soul was in every single one of those nests I’d made. And now they were good for nothing. My hope of fortune was gone!

Sara and I are both grown now. The elm tree and party lines are things of the past. And only Harlequin romances and birds have stood the test of time. But, in my usual Pollyanna way, I’m thankful for the education, thankful for friends who aren’t afraid to tell you the truth, and glad birds don’t laugh at me and fly the other way.

Quite a few years ago, I worked as a delivery person for a local florist. One brisk morning I had just left in the van on my first run and I decided to cut through the parking lot of the daycare center behind the florist shop. There were a few cars parked in the employees’ section, but it was otherwise vacant. That’s when I saw her - a plain looking woman of average height, wearing worn blue jeans with a drab hooded sweatshirt tied tightly around her face. She just stood on the curb, holding a cup in her hand, trying to shield herself from the cold morning wind.

My heart went out to her as I circled back to my shop and pulled into the parking space designated for me. I went inside and grabbed the phone book to look up the number for our local mission. I figured I could give her the few dollars I had with me, but the thing she might need most was a place to sleep and a roof over her head. I jumped back in the van, gripping my dollar bills rolled up with the name and phone number of the mission and drove as fast as I could over to where she had been standing. My prayers were answered; she was still there! Mustering up all of my courage I rolled down the window, shoved the wad into her hand and sped off. That blessing of giving to others needier than me quickly faded as I watched her in my rearview mirror. She was running after me, waving her hand with the bills high in the air and shaking her head “No!” That’s about the time I realized what I had seen in her cup as I pulled away. It was coffee. She’d just been standing outside waiting for daycare children to arrive.