ALTHOUGH THE sun is with us less and the dark hours are longer, nature can provide a wild bird splash of color to those who leave offerings of shelter and food in their backyards. Birds readily on view right now on the North Shore include the Black-Capped Chickadee, Chestnut-Backed Chickadee, Red-Breasted Nuthatch, House Finch, Flicker, Yaried Thrush, Rufous-Sided Towhee, Dark-Eyed Junco and Steller’s Jay. Just around the corner expect to see the Downy Woodpecker and Pine Siskin. If you’re lucky, you might see a Pileated Woodpecker (it’s bigger than a raven and looks rather prehistoric with a crest on its head and large angular wings). “You can hear them a mile away chopp- ing inte trees,’’ said John Morton, a North Vancouver resident who, along with his wife Wendy, has just opened Wild Birds Unlimited. The store specializes in the sale of wild bird food and f2eders. The Mortons first discovered the wild bird world 10 years ago when John purchased an_ inexpensive feeder and bird seed from a grocery store in Dundarave. The feeder attracted birds. The Mor- ‘A Look Inside... ? ar] OF “O'Henry's “The Last Leaf” is the story abou a trembling sad soul which is situated between two worlds, Life and Death. Indeed, Life is but a little green leaf on a vine (of Fate) against fierce gusts of wind. Autumn wind, and Winter is soon to come. dohnsy (the main character in the story, who is very ill with pneumonia} is read as a symbolic figure of the Anima Mun- di (world soul). The striking fact is that Johnsy's sickness is not actually the pneumonia, out her taste for Death. This Rest-wish takes the form of pneumonia. Directly speaking, this poor girl would like to die: “When the last leaf falls. ! must go, too.” She sadly muses as she looks out to the bfank side of the next br.ck house, where the ivy leaf is hung. “1 want to tum loose my hold on everything. and go sailing down, down, just ke one of those poor, tired leaves.” Poor girl. Jchnsy’s Death-reverie is identified with gravity. This is dangerous, becatse she'd “The Last Leaf” By MICHAEL BECKER News Reporter tons began to learn about their wildhfe guests and started ex- perimenting with different types of seeds. ‘It was a great way of br- inging wildlife into our backyard and it doubled the pleasure of the garden,’’ Morton said. Morton recommends the best time of the year to begin feeding wild birds is in early October. Birds migrating south stop by to buiid their energy. ‘‘And then they hit you again when they come back through in the spring. Some may decide to nest in the area if there’s encugh natural food and other food sources such as backyard feeders,’’ he said. According to Morton, the most popular food with wild birds is the oil sunflower. It contains three to four times the caloric value of striped sunflowers. Birds also like varied mixes of millet, sunflower See Feeding Page 45 BY CURR OTSEM like to fall back to the original state. Sad- ly, no religion in her heart is found. “But, fo! After the beating rain and fierce gusts of wind that had endured through the livelong night, there yet stood out against the brick wall an ivy leaf, It was the last on the vine.” “... Look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on the wall. Didn't you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when the wind blew? Ah, darling, it’s Behrman’s masterpiece —— he painted it there the night that the last leaf fell.” Now then, we have come to know about the reality of “the last leaf.” It was not the one that had sucked the breast of the fertile earth, but the one that was hor fram the hidden love of an artist. ft scenis to us because of that, it was even greener than the real one. We are not necessarily pessimistic about everything, but it is hard to be an optimist in this particular season of JOHN AND Wendy Morton have parlayed their backyard love affair with wild birds into a unique business veriture. The Nort Vancouver couple has opened a store in Vancouver specializing in the sale of wild bird feed and feeders. 43 - Wednesday, November 22, 1989 - North Shore News Return made simpler PAGE 52 ENCORE FOR LYNN JOHNSTOWN! NEWS photo Neil Lucente The distinguished cartoonist Lynn Johnston, the author of numerous books under the title of “For Better or For Worse”, syndicated in over 450 newspapers, the Ruben Award Winner, (which is the most prestigious award in the world towards cartoonists) will be with us to greet you (of all ages) «nd to autegraph her newest book “The 10th Anniversary Collec- tion of FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE” (with about 50 pages of her autobiography. Publisher's price: $18.95. During the day of autographing, Saturday, special $14.95). We believe it is her wish to pay a visit to more bookstores and meet more good readers if possible, but we have leamed that her schedule is so tight. that hard as she may try, she is only able to make ore visit to one bookstore (your district bookstore Readers’ Retreat, in LYNN VALLEY CENTRE is the honored one) through the Vancouver, West Vancouver, and North Vancouver area this year. It is our guess that, possibly this bookstore in LYNN VALLEY CENTRE is the bookstore closest to her memories of her early years (about this we can now read in her autobiography.) However, the truth here is that she is not coming because the bookstore is here, but she is coming to the bookstore because her good old neighbors and good readers are around this particular bookstore. So this lucky bookstore is the junction where she is going to greet you, and in return, she might expect from you ver; warm hugs. A daughter and sister of the North Shore, LYNN JOHNSTONE, carrying with her a huge bundle of smiles to share with us, is coming home. Readers’ Retreat Bookstore in LYNN VALLEY CENTRE cordial: invites you (of all ages) to come and meet this outstan- ding cartoonist LYNN JOYNSTON, and if you feel like getting her autograph on her baok, then we believe she would do it with a happy heart. After all, if under a certain ideology, i.e. Rolling Stones, the Super-bowl game, Elint’s “CATS”, a sym- phony orchestra on the mountain, Lynn Johnston, etc, penple gather, and are involved, like raindrops into an ocean, it would create a kind of fulfilling feeting. In this state, it is the ocean which 1s lowing into a raindrop. It is the grease, or oil that smoothes our squeaky, dry, daily routine of life. This feeling is, in the winter season, identified with “Christmas”, that resides in our hearts through the year. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1:00-2:00 P.M. Readers Retreat Bookstore LYN ALLOY CENTRE 1199 Lynn Valley Rd., North Vancouver 985-7616 disc ntent. After F. Nietzsche assassinated God, we have hardly heard that He has been revived in most of our hearts, neither have we the Philosophy to live with, ner hope in dying: Gaiaism? The Reincamation theory? If anyone knows that the Human alone has brave- ly escaped from the Triluka (the Brutal World’, or “the Animal World”) after he has shed off the animal skin, which was borrowed from the Gaia, then he would know that a certain aspect of Gaiaism is a false gospel. And anybody who knows that unless one’s Karma (“Cause and Result) is exhausted, even if one wanted to die, he could not die, he would agree that Reincamationism is a misinterpreted gospel, — then, itis not bliss, but a curse. {n this connection, it is our conjecture that the World as our collective: physical-body, is in a severe “pneumonic” state, and woud like to die; itis destructive, sadistic, and ill humored. Through “The Last Leaf. we have come to a conclusion that it is not always, necessarily, the big, or great that make things better, for as we have found, the one, tiny leaf on the wall saved one whole life. How many things are bigger or greater than this? Anybody who has read Lynn Johnston's “Funny Papers”, would not find it hard to ayree that her comic strip takes the position of the “last leaf’, in her part of the World of ours. Her well of im- agination is clear and deep: hardly polluted with down.wvard-wishes, or destructiveness, (sadism, pneumoic nonsense, tastelessness, etc.) nor has it dried out through a decade of bailing, nor is it frozen. After all, this cartoonist is an Alchemust who is ont the right track. She doves not cook the things to make 4 for mula to cast a spell over us. ie. lice. fleas, rotten teeth, fingernails, fallen hair, lizard’s tongue. dragon's scales, etc. (although these are popular under the category of “hilarious”). Kather, she transmutes the ordinary things, or even the above mnen- tioned things like lice, fleas, rotten teeth, etc. into a gold that brightens up our daily lives. Through her pains, the ordinary pains, which are arising in anybody's daily life ~ because of these kinds of pains, a Life is hardly a heaven — she comforts us in her own way. Her Books are a mir- ror, through which we can see our pain- ful faces of daily life, and we have found through the mirror, that these kinds of daily tragedies are transtormed into com: edies. We are smiling. We know that a little healthy smile goes a long way, it takes out the root of sadness, discontent, etc. Yes, through her, we can bring ta our hearts a healthy and warm smile which turns the ill-humored world into a home vath a lighted hearth. surrounded with warm hearted ones. H we can see a strange little green leaf on the dark grey wall of this winter, then why do we not add it urto our Christmas dream which is a universal dream of Utopia that we would like to bring down to Earth. Shantih (pzace), Shantih, Shantih.