West Palm Beach FL Archives

It doesn’t take much to amuse me. I bought a shredder to take care of confidential financial documents plus the occasional credit card and even CD.

I realized that it didn’t really get much use in the basement, so I moved it under the kitchen table where I take a guilty pleasure watching junk mail disappear into its maw, leaving nothing but tiny strips of paper.

Wife Lila the bank teller

Wife Lila took a job as teller at the Hocking Valley bank when we were living in Athens, Ohio. She turned out to be good at it and enjoyed helping her customers.

Miss Miller was one of her favorites – a tiny little woman who would show up to withdraw a buck or two at a time. She came in all excited to say that she was getting married. Her tip turned into a nice picture package in The Athens Messenger. (Click on the image to make it larger.)

When I went out to visit the newlyweds, I paused on the porch of a battered two-story frame house that had clearly seen better days when I heard a loud THUMP, THUMP THUMP, BANG, and an old tire went rolling out the front door.

Miss Miller was cleaning house.

Getting back to shredders

One nice thing about being a bank teller is that it was never hard for her to find a new job. When we moved to Gastonia, N.C., she hired on at the Carolina State Bank just as it was moving into new facilities.

Spencer, one of her bosses, was a nice guy, but it was good that the bank was housed in a one-story building because I’m not sure his elevator would reach a higher floor.

Right after a huge shredder was uncrated, Spence said, “Let’s see if this thing works.” while plugging it into the wall outlet.

It worked. Unfortunately, the first thing it ate was the instruction manual that had been sitting in the tray.

Lila the Head Teller

Once it became clear that Lila was the one other tellers turned to when they were out of balance, she was promoted to head teller at the Flagship Bank next to the paper. (The bank has since changed its name six or eight times, and the building is buried under The Post’s four-story building.)

She particularly liked working in the drive-in windows. She was probably holding the drawer open for me to insert two forms of ID before cashing my check.

She didn’t play favorites, although she said there was a particular bald-headed fireman who would get her weak in the knees.

That might have been about the time I ditched the combover and went fully chrome on top.

One of the first things I did when I woke up this morning was to check the weather in Cape to see how much snow had fallen. Mother said she was up most of the night. “I’d go to sleep for a couple of hours, then wake up and sit at the window watching the big flakes swirl down.”

I spent some time listening over the Internet to the Cape cops and the Missouri Highway Patrol. Sounded like a lot of folks didn’t heed the advice to stay off the road. It must have been a good day to own a wrecker company (and a bad day to be a wrecker truck driver).

“Look in the front yard. NOW!”

While my mind was focused on cold and snow, Wife Lila headed out the door to walk on the beach. A few minutes after I heard the door slam, I got a text message: “Look in the front yard. NOW!”

That’s usually not a good message. Still, I hurried to look out the window.

Holy Cow! The front yard is covered in white. Drifting white. Drifting white with feet and beaks.

It’s an ibis invasion

It was an invasion of American White Ibis. They are common in South Florida, but we don’t usually get them in our yard. They prefer wetlands where they can feed on small fish, crayfish and aquatic insects.

I kept looking to see what they were eating out of our yard, but I couldn’t tell. Several sites I checked said they are “tactile, not visual feeders,” which means they swish their bill around until it hits something worth consuming. They moved across the yard in a hurry, so we must not have been a good cafe.

They sound like spring breakers

A Wikipedia entry reported that “a field study late in the Florida nesting season revealed that on an average day, adult American white ibis spent 10.25 hours looking for food, 0.75 hours flying, 13 hours resting, roosting, and attending to their nests. Much of the time roosting is spent preening, biting and working their feathers with their long bills, as well as rubbing the oil glands on the sides of their heads on back plumage. American white ibis generally only preen themselves, not engaging in allopreening unless part of courtship behavior. Bathing often takes place before preening; ibis squat in water 2–7.9 in) deep and flick water over themselves with each wing in succession. Hundreds of birds may bathe together around the time of courtship.”

Dark ones are youngsters

You might have noticed some dark and some mottled birds in the group.

The story above mentioned “The gray to sandy gray brown juvenile plumage appears between weeks two and six, and face and bill become pink a few weeks later, while the legs remain gray. The irises have turned slate-gray by this stage. Once fledged, the juvenile American white ibis has largely brown plumage and only the rump, underwing and underparts are white. The legs become light orange. As it matures, white feathers begin appearing on the back and it undergoes a gradual molt to obtain the white adult plumage. This is mostly complete by the end of the second year, although some brown feathers persist on the head and neck until the end of the third year. Juvenile birds take around two years to reach adult size and weight.”

Well, at least I didn’t have to shovel the white stuff drifting in MY front yard.

Tag: West Palm Beach FL

Shredding – My Guilty Pleasure