Happy Birthday, Bill!

It's that time again, that cold dank rainy/snowy/precipity time in March when the scent of cooking pork ribs and cake rises up from the Indigo Hill kitchen. It is Bill of the Birds' birfday.

photo by Timothy Ryan, who has an eye.

Thing is, he is in San Diego ogling crested magpie jays and western bluebirds for his birthday, which is today. He's  working a bird festival. I think he's taking a bunch of kids birding today. It's what he was made to do. That's OK. He had enough birthday last year to last him for several.

I thought it would be fun to revisit last year's big party, which was ossum beyond ossum. It's the party he's not having this year.

I had a lot of help in pulling the party off. Wendy Clark and Jen and John Sauter came over and worked decorating magic on the Galley's party space. There were flowers and pictures of Bill everywhere. And the Galley staff was terrific.

I'm so thrilled that Marietta has a wonderful place like The Galley and the Adelphia Music Hall, where The Rain Crows are wont to play.

We wont to play there more.

I got a big blowup picture of Dave Tipling's shot of Bill, doin' what he likes to do best--lifting a pint at an English pub.

the RealBillies came over from Athens to play, and they were ridiculously great. There were all these Telecasters going full tilt 

and the beautiful voice of Mimi Hart rang out through the room

and then the beautiful voice of Elsa Thompson did, too.

I think she had as good a time as Bill did.

Bill's best music friend John Kogge came and they played together which was terrific. They played together in the Cenozoic Age.

The music flowed and flowed. Kids danced and danced.

Black Bart showed up in costume. Anybody recognize this specimen (the big male)?

Phoebe got hijacked by Vinnie, with Oona and Erin looking on. I love the Eew face!!

The cake was over the top CakeBoss redonk. Todd Horvath of Bittersweet's Chocolate and Pastry in Canton, Ohio made a mocha cake with coconut cream filling and a fondant icing that was a perfect replica of Bill's new Samik hollowbody. The strap is chocolate. Everything edible. And so delicious.

Bill loved his party, seeing all his friends from near and far. I think the best birthday present, though, was the newly-pressed copies of The Rain Crows' CD, "Looks Like Rain." Hard to believe our CD will be a year old today, too!

We've told "Looks Like Rain" that she will soon have a little brother or sister. "Dream of Flying Dream" is well on its way to being realized. And with all that's happened in this year, that is cause for celebration.

Celebration of the drive and vision of a very special man. A great father and husband, an imbiber of life, and an exemplary human being. He moves through the world, hair on fire, leaping to the next square, then the next...

Happy birthday, Bill!! Where'd you get the little monkey?

Pirates, if you could see your way clear to not breaking his heart this year....

that'd be greaaaaat.

Happy Birthday, Bill Thompson III!

He has the most marvelous eyes, crowned by strong dark brows. Perhaps not many people notice them, hidden as they are behind glasses, but I do. They speak of determination. Sometimes I think of Bill as pure determination, barely contained in flesh and bone. I look at the odds he’s faced and the things he’s accomplished and it’s clear to me that the first metaphor I came up with when I met him-- a human locomotive—is still the most accurate. You stand back and wave as he rumbles by. Or if you’re going along for the ride, you hang on real tight.

Seamus Waxwing, falling asleep in Daddy's warm hand

That such an imposing man should love birds, the most airily delicate of creatures, is part of his appeal. It’s the love of birds we share, and a mutual tendency to put that love into words, that threw me onto his train, a rather unlikely stowaway in his fast-paced life.

And then there was music. Birds may have started it, but music sealed the deal between us. He grew up immersed in it, just one in a series of great legacies from Bill and Elsa. 

That's enough on that one. Don't even look at it.

  Music's coming out of him in waves now, unleashed by a perfect cyclone of creative collaborators (Thank you, Rain Crows!!), new recording technology and years of pent-up desire.

Guitarzan, laying down one of approximately 71,000 guitar tracks for The Rain Crows' "Looks Like Rain" for David Traugh's discerning ear.

He's worked very hard and incredibly fast to realize this passion, and as you read this we just got eight big boxes full of our new CD to show for it. Sixteen songs, all original, in an album from a band that played its first barely-rehearsed gig in September 2010. We recorded rough tracks in a Lakeside hotel barely a year ago, and worked to refine them before going into the studio in December 2011. Determination. A product to show for it.  Far and away the best birthday present a guy could give himself!

cover photo by Michael Northrup; design by Joe Parisi 

All that, and a wonderful dad to Phoebe and Liam. It seems they got the best parts of him-creativity and music and art and humor and a dash of athleticism, too.  In an ideal world, we'd all be at Pirates' Spring Training in Bradenton, FL right now, but there's lots of fun and work to do here. We'll look forward to a besbol summer.

I am humbled and grateful to still be riding Bill Thompson’s train, to be here to keep shoveling coal into the firebox. I’m not sure what his next destination will be, but you can bet I’ll be hanging on for the ride.

photo by Mitch Casey

Photo by David Tipling

Thank goodness for beer. It mellows him out. A bit.

Happy birthday, Bill. Best guy I know.

Happy Birthday, Bill!

I told Bill this morning I feel like a very lucky woman.

I get to share so much with him, and he makes it so much fun.

Photo by Mary Ferracci

There's not much Bill likes better than getting people on a life bird. He's good at it, too. He chases down the beginners, wrests from unwilling lips their mumbled confession that they didn't really get a look at it that time, then makes sure they get a killer look at it the next time. He makes it his mission. You should see the smiles he brings.

Fun (and Connie and Claire and Anne and Ric and Kelly and Sara and Nina) seems to follow him wherever he goes.

Forget Pied Piper.  He's way cooler than that.

He's the Mack Daddy of birdwatching.

And then there's the full-blown Crowmance going on, the huge adventure of making our own music from the ground up with like minded souls, The Rain Crows.

Mr. Fez makes it happen.

He puts everything he's got into music, making sure everybody's on the same train. And when everybody gets on that train, look out, because it's going to go somewhere. He looks like he's relaxing here. Nope. Just planning his next move.

photo by Timothy Ryan

I dream of spring, when we can walk slowly down our trails, listening and looking at everything

and Bill can teach Liam, again, how to throw properly

with a backdrop of filmy green and sibilant warbler song

leaving me to marvel that this vessel of wonderful DNA is going to grow up big and tall, maybe even knowing how to throw with pinpoint accuracy like his Daddy

maybe not

but we all will have had fun in the trying and the growing.

I'm not saying the sun exactly shines out of Bill's posterior all the time

but on the whole he's a pretty awesome mega-chunk of humanity and 

photo by Shila Wilson

we feel mighty lucky to have him in our lives. Blessed, yes, that fits. Happy birthday, BT3. You are the bomb.

The Hotdog Brothers

Oh, how I loved watching my boys, the Hotdog Brothers, working the river together. There was so much to see.
I love this shot.
And this one. Liam passed some of the time by drawing.


Liam proved a slightly intermittent paddler, but Bill was more than able to pilot the huge loaded canoe himself. It might have been nice to have a little more power in the bow, but he didn't complain. Phoebe and I needed to go full bore just to keep up with him. He's got guns under those sleeves.

Every once in awhile, a man needs to rest, however.

Liam was charged with making sure they didn't run aground. But the sun and trickling water worked their magic on him, too, and his head dropped lower and lower.

Soon he was sound asleep.


I cannot tell you how much he looks like my father here. How many times have I seen my dad in just this pose. Never in a canoe, mind you; he was an Iowa farm boy, wasn't much for water. But asleep, chin on chest, hands clasped? Oh yes.

Threading the Needle with Bill of the Birds

Not only was the slot canyon spookily magical, but it offered some fabulous photo-ops.

There came a point where it narrowed down to a squeeze. Now the fun begins!

I often wish I were taller than I am. This was not one of those times.

The slot canyon narrowed down to a hole, blocked by a huge boulder. You had to crawl under the boulder to get through. It was tight. I was regretting the extra biscuits, but I made it.

Come on, Daddy! You can do it! I just did it!

Of course, Liam did it in seconds. Little snot. Then he climbed the wall just for fun.



Bill of the Birds examines his options. He don't much like that crawl-under thing.

Nick suggests climbing the wall a ways back and coming along the ledge instead. So Bill handed us his camera and binocs and went for it.

This was not an option I was wild about. The ledge kind of melted away in a Dali-esque drip as it neared the passage. Bill soon reaches a point where he can go neither up nor down, forward nor back. Oh, drat. You guys go on. I'll just stay and feed the burying beetles.


Back to Plan A. In order to squeeze through beneath the boulder, Bill has to wriggle on his back, like a sea otter. I went through on my hands and knees.


He's going to make it.
I think we should do this slot canyon hike every year. It will keep us honest when the Christmas cookies come around.

This post is dedicated to all the Little People out there. Sometimes we rule.

For those needing another Chet Baker fix, as well as a splendid photographic and video run-down of October 11's Big Sit from our tower, go visit Jim McCormac's excellent blog, Ohio Birds and Biodiversity. There is a picture of Chet there that will make you smooch your screen.