It’s a crazy world.  The other day, I decided to go for a walk; it was the first gorgeous day after a period of rain, and utterly irresistible.  I ended up at the city library, one of those Carnegie structures so ubiquitous in small and medium towns across America, a millionaire’s atonement for ravaging society, back when such people even cared.  This particular one sits in a little park with a bandstand and a monument to a parents’ grief for their soldier son, killed in action.  It has the added virtue of offering coffee from one of those Keurig pod machines for fifty cents.  Pretty good coffee, too, and you get entertained by the myriad characters that hang around such places.

It was, as I said, a beautiful day, so I took my coffee outside, to sit by the fountain donated by another benefactor to the glory of his family.  It was windy, so it was just as well the fountain was off.

Just as I settled in, I heard an animal running somewhere behind me, a large dog, I thought.  As it passed in front of me, though, I was startled to see a young deer bounding headlong toward the midday traffic.  It’s not a huge town, but the streets along the park run to four lanes, and I worried that the deer wouldn’t make it without getting pancaked against a cement truck.  No problem.  In a flash, it cleared six lanes, including a side street, and disappeared into an adjacent church parking lot.

Now, those with a mystical bent might see an omen of some kind here.  Me, I just reflected on the fact that our town, these days essentially just a suburb of St. Louis, has grown very rapidly, outstripping its sleepy county seat days, and leaving nearby wildlife precious little room for, well, wild life.  Ironically, as habitat shrinks, so does the taste for hunting among the minions of the town, now pretty much gentrified and unused to killing their own food.  Canada geese, which used to pass here twice a year during migration, now stay year round in the many ponds dug for all the wilderness-sounding suburbs (Iron Mountain Lake, Notting Hills Forest, etc.).  People complain about the scat, but eating the birds is illegal, so they thrive.  As do wild turkeys, of all things, frightening toddlers in their own yards.

This is happening all over the country, as demographic studies continue to show the increasing urbanization of America.  At least we don’t have bears where I live; that would, indeed, be a portentous omen.

I suppose the upshot is that wherever you might find omens, there is usually a practical element involved as well.  I’m reminded of a student I had while doing archaeology on the island of Ithaka, in Greece.  It was, of course, the home of Odysseus, and we were at the foot of Mount Aetos.  My student, who was supposed to be paying attention to a prism pole he was holding, looked up and cried, “Hey, what kind of bird is that?”

I looked where he was pointing, to his left.  “It’s an eagle,” I said, “and it’s to your left.  According to Homer, that’s a bad omen.”

“Oh,” he said, and turned around until it was on his right.