Kept 'refused'? It is the best line in the piece and it is the setup, the thing that happened before anything changed. Kept 'John'? The surname is the half that names a grown man, and it is how Bowen and Wenner were scored here. Kept 'garden'? A garden is a place, and the story is that a wild bird goes back to one particular person.
This one really happened. In June last year Cindy Samucha, who uses a wheelchair, was keeping curious dogs off an injured great horned owl near Mountain Lake Park in the Presidio and waiting for animal control, who never came, so she rang the one person she could think of: John, the bird guy. Dr John Murnane, 78, a retired molecular biologist who had been a waterbird docent on Alcatraz, put on a thick coat and gloves and threw a towel over it, and in his words it just melted. A centre in Marin would not take it because it was not a Marin resident, so he drove it ninety minutes through rush hour to Burlingame with the owl on the back seat, talking softly to it the whole way. Weeks later it was released into the Presidio near his house. Not long after, his wife shrieked at the kitchen window: it was sitting outside, looking straight at him. It has been coming back ever since.
Every word, accounted for
AA little word. It only holds the sentence together.
MarinThe county whose wildlife centre would not take the bird. The funniest thing in the story and still the setup.
centerThe place that said no. What matters is who then said yes.
refusedThe best line here, and a strong word to want: a bird turned away for not being a local. It is what happened before the story starts.
theA little word. It only holds the sentence together.
owlWhat he picked up. A towel over an owl and it goes limp, which is a thing rescuers know and he did not.
JohnHis first name. The surname is the half that names a grown man, which is how every adult has been scored here.
MurnaneWho it goes back to. Not a garden, not a street: one particular retired biologist who drove it ninety minutes.
rescuedWhat he did, and the reason the bird has any reason to know him.
becauseA little word. It only holds the sentence together.
itA little word. It only holds the sentence together.
wasA little word. It only holds the sentence together.
notA little word. It only holds the sentence together.
aA little word. It only holds the sentence together.
MarinSaid twice, which is the joke: the wrong county for a bird with no address.
residentThe centre's reason. A wonderful detail and not the event.
soA little word. It only holds the sentence together.
heA little word. It only holds the sentence together.
droveThe second verb, and a real rival. He did drive it, ninety minutes in rush hour, talking to it. 'Rescued' is the one the bird would pick.
itA little word. It only holds the sentence together.
ninetyHow long the drive took. A number for the telling.
minutesGoes with ninety.
himselfThat nobody else would. It is carried by the rest of the sentence.
andA little word. It only holds the sentence together.
itA little word. It only holds the sentence together.
nowThat it is still going on. 'Keeps' does that work already.
keepsNot once. Again and again, for over a year.
visitingWhat the owl does. It is not being fed and it is not caged; it turns up.
hisA little word. It only holds the sentence together.
gardenWhere it lands. The place is the smaller half of it; the point is whose.