This is what opening day looks like...

....if you're in my shoes. Quail season cranked up on the home field today and wouldn't you know, the rest of the world refused to take a holiday, selfish capitalists that they are. It would be an impeccable afternoon to chase birds, too, with temps in the mid-30s and a mild breeze. To paraphrase Thomas Paine, these are the times that drive men to play the Powerball.

Truth be told, I've rarely been able to hunt the opener since they moved it from Thanksgiving to the Monday prior. Between a compressed work week and family convergence the holiday crunch leaves only the narrowest of openings, leaving me looking for a path of lesser resistance. Most years it would be simpler to convince the legislature to changed the opener back to Thanksgiving.

On Thursday and most other days of the year I'll give thanks for the family and the job, but the days of low vocational and familial responsibilities are a relic of the '90s. Early in that decade Datus Proper wrote a wonderful book called Pheasants of the Mind.  Today, sitting at my desk on the second floor of an old house on Pine Street, I'm playing the same game with a smaller bird.