“We'll go down in history as the first society that wouldn't save itself because it wasn't cost-effective." — Kurt Vonnegut
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Old Dog
Retrospect – The Pigeon War of 1952
Retrospect – The Pigeon War of 1952
By Kevin J. W. Driscoll (c) 2025
So, let me take you back to the bustling streets of Boston in 1952. My grandfather, a city boy through and through, loved to regale us with tales of his urban escapades. And none was more legendary than The Pigeon War of 1952.
“It was a crisp autumn morning,” Gramps would start, leaning back in his chair. “I was just a young buck, running errands for old Mr. Thompson, the newsstand guy on Tremont Street. He had the best spot in the city, right next to the bagel cart and across from Boston Common.”
Now, in the city, pigeons are everywhere. But back in ’52, they were more than just a nuisance—they were a menace. Mr. Thompson had been waging a losing battle against these winged rats for years. They’d steal his newspapers, dive-bomb his customers, and generally cause havoc.
“One day,” Gramps continued, “Mr. Thompson had had enough. ‘We need a plan, kid,’ he said to me. ‘These pigeons are ruining my business. It’s time to fight back.'”
Gramps and Mr. Thompson devised a scheme so elaborate, it would make a military strategist proud. They armed themselves with water balloons, slingshots, and even a makeshift pigeon trap made out of a cardboard box and some breadcrumbs.
“The first attack came at dawn,” Gramps said, his eyes sparkling with nostalgia. “Mr. Thompson and I were ready. The pigeons swooped down, thinking it was business as usual. But not this time.”
With a battle cry that echoed through the streets, they launched their counterattack. Water balloons flew, slingshots snapped, and pigeons scattered in every direction. For a brief moment, it looked like victory was theirs.
But then, the pigeons regrouped. It was like something out of a Hitchcock movie. They came back with reinforcements—dozens, maybe hundreds of them. The sky darkened with their numbers.
“We were outnumbered, outgunned, and out of water balloons,” Gramps said, shaking his head. “But we didn’t give up. We fought until the bitter end.”
In the end, the pigeons claimed victory that day. Mr. Thompson’s newsstand was a wreck, and Gramps was covered in feathers and pigeon poop. But they’d earned the respect of the neighborhood. Word of their valiant stand spread, and people came from all over to support Mr. Thompson’s newsstand, if only to hear the tale of The Pigeon War of ’52.
“And that’s how we saved the newsstand, even if we lost the battle,” Gramps would finish with a grin. “Never underestimate the power of a good story.”
Years went by, and the story of The Pigeon War of ’52 became a cherished family legend, told and retold at countless gatherings and here I am now telling it to you. My grandfather’s escapade turned into a symbol of resistance, resilience and camaraderie, a reminder that even in the face of the most ridiculous challenges, a bit of humor and determination could carry you through.
Epilogue:
As I grew older, I often walked by the spot where Mr. Thompson’s newsstand once stood. It had long since been replaced by a sleek coffee shop, but in my mind’s eye, I could still see the old man and my grandfather, battling the pigeons with water balloons and slingshots.
Whenever life threw me a curve ball, I’d think back to Gramps’s story and smile. It wasn’t just about the pigeons or the chaos—it was about facing adversity head-on, finding the humor in every situation, and when it is all over and done always having a good story to tell.
And so, the legacy of The Pigeon War of ’52 lives on, a testament to the indomitable spirit of city folk and the continued power of a well-told tale.
–30–
Sisters 2025
As I savor the feel
Of the radiating warmth
From the the flow of
Electricity that I often
Take for granted
I think of the
Women of Palestine
As they arise in the cold to
labor each day
As a rock in the river
Of genocide that sweeps away
Their children
Lovers, husbands, sons, nephews
Sisters
Ribbonning through their hunger and thirst,
With jagged fishooks of generational trauma
Are the currents of unstoppable fear-
The Male blood-red lust for control
And anger at a world that
Will never give that…
Then the women of Sudan
Who bear the blackened waves of the
Men’s impotency turned
To pain-giving thrusts of hatred
Toward an earth who
They feel
Never gave them
A path forward,
Churning and churning toward
Death and their
Existential fear of it
through the violent
Terror and torture of the
sisters mothers aunties
Who birthed them, who held them
Who raised them
And the women of Afghanistan
Painfully close to the sound of freedom,
Now hearing the demanding roars from men
To silence feminine voices that
Carry the power of the Goddess
That long abandoned the men
after the multitude of
Rapes and attacks,
That inconceivable lack of compassion leaves
Bereft the women in blue enclosures
even as they
Carry within them, the males of the next generation
Of oppression, fear and loss.
This perpetual mysterious self hatred of men,
Projected ever outward
Despite the only love beyond love
They have experienced being in
The arms of the women who tunneled their
Pathway to the planet—
They seem to always turn in fury
On the women trying to survive
The refusal of the masculine
To reflect on its cyclic shadow
Of pain and agony
I feel paralyzed and unable to
Attempt any sort of understanding
Of how we have become so unbalanced
And my body so denied of its agency
As to leave the sisters of our
Collective body
Dying of the perennial testosterone-fused cancer
fear
Encrusting every cell of creativity
Peace and joy
That could be
That can be
A beautiful human destiny
My sisters I pray for us
My brothers, I tentatively wait for your wisdom
To grow
In time for our survival.
Leggy poem
I want a poem with legs
To walk around this great big world,
Striding over and into
Many places, cultures and times
And Into the hearthstone of my
Beloved fellow travelers
I want a poem that can pour a cuppa
And gently warm pairs of cold hands
Offering comforts for
the anxious movements and twitches
That accompany being a human
And aware
I want a poem with eyes to see
And witness the wrongs of the planet’s people
Or take in the illuminated awe-infused moments
With the tongue and lips
To tell the thousands of stories
Our faces have turned from burning in shame
Or the thousands of other tales of surviving
And thriving
To reflect the beauty within the pain
And the treasure within the tempest
I want a poem with ears to hear
The ancient songs
and whispered secrets of lovers
The glory-triumphant proclamations
Or the desperate screams of the forsaken
Vibrating with the waves of
Wonder
And the anguished cries of heartbreak
I want a poem with long reaching arms
To wrap around the little things
The tender things
That pulse with in each of us,
To hold us up against a mighty
chest of strength
Like our Papas taking us to bed,
When we pretend to sleep, nestled against
The familiar smells and calming wisdom
Of our elders,
I want a poem that offers the breast
Of the madonna,
Providing sustenance, healing and soothing
In heavenly manna freely flowing to all
And each as needed
Stopping the forever hunger for at least
These precious gulping moments
I want a poem with a rapid beating heart
And gasping lungs,
With the sweat of life long labors
And the vast relief of rest at long last
Alive with the exquisite perceptions
That beat with the love that longs to
Join in its harmonious rhythms
To the silver threads we weave and unravel
This poem I want is the desire to destroy
Our pathetic attempts at aggrandizement of
The tiny fears and failings
The lost in loneliness meanderings through
The dark woods and vast night skies of
Our need to be small and large at the same time
At the same time, to keep ignited the flame of hope
And wonder alight and alive
With trust.
I want a poem to heal us, to see the wholeness
Of us,
To acknowledge our deep need
With each other
Even as we oft work to distance ourselves from that
I want a poem that builds the bridge
Between us.
Looking Back.
We are a visual people. Images have dominated our communication from early cave
paintings to the digital age. Our thoughts, emotions, and stories are best captured in
photos. An image can provide description when words fail; it can also lead to better
reactions, emotions, and thoughts.
Travel has always been best expressed in Photographs. The visual experience of travel.
It starts with a passport photo, then a view from a plane, train, bus, or automobile
window, and finally the destination. Each a visual experience. Travel and photography
have always been intertwined. We have such a brief amount of time on this earth that
I can’t think of a better use of that time than to travel, to photograph the world, to
experience life in different places. For me, there’s not many things I find more important
than that.
I take photographs, lots of photographs. The places I’ve traveled captured a memory
bank that can be revisited. The captured moments remind me of the experiences I’ve
been lucky enough to enjoy. Pictures saved are not just for tourists. They are stories. They
are shared. If someone tells me a photo inspired them to travel or brought back
forgotten memories of their own travels, I’m encouraged and inspired myself.
In my travels I’ve walked to get where I want to go. I walk as much as possible. A simple
exercise, no car, no train, no bus. Authenticity is key, walking the footsteps of previous
travelers.
My camera and belongings on my back. Everything carried as I hit the open road. The
freedom walking provides forces me to slow down and appreciate the surroundings. It’s
the journey, not the destination.
Looking back.
So, What Happened to The Overland Trail?
“The answer is never the answer. What’s really interesting is the mystery. If you seek the mystery instead of the answer, you’ll always be seeking. I’ve never seen anybody really find the answer. They think they have, so they stop thinking. But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than ever.” -Ken Kesey.
The Overland trek was not for the faint hearted. After 3,000 years of human infection, smallpox was finally declared eradicated in 1979. Until then, it was the world’s most feared disease. In the 20th century alone, it’s estimated to have claimed 300 million lives. The thirty percent fatality rate was part of the story. The other involved the potential loss of eyesight and the painful development of pus-filled lesions followed by pitted scars.
In 1975, the prevailing recommendation for international traveler’s departing Australia was to be vaccinated against smallpox, cholera, and typhoid. That was a painful but necessary experience.
Obtaining visas for the various countries we were traveling through was always a hassle. It wasn’t about showing up at the border of most countries and gaining entry and e-Visas were decades away. Lining up as many visas ahead of time took months of planning, especially for extended periods of travel.
Visas were gold, your permission to enter the country that could take weeks to obtain.
We’d have to take our passports to an embassy, consulate, or diplomatic mission, or sometimes even mail them in and wait for them to be returned. We also had to be sure they would not expire by the time we reached the country’s border. Problem was in trying to estimate our arrival dates. Our passport pages filled quickly with visa entries and exit stamps. Extension pages had to be added to our passports to accommodate all our visa stamps. The stamps were important but also created problems because where we’d been sometimes conflicted politically with where we were headed.
A visa or stamp of a previously visited country occasionally raised flags for border officials. We had heard stories and were warned by travelers who had been refused entry to certain countries based on the stamps in their passport. We learned to request not to have our passport pages stamped with the entry visa for Israel. A separate single page was issued, stamped, and slipped into our passports. An Israeli arrival stamp would pose a serious problem if we wanted to travel to any Arab country after visiting Israel. We were hoping to get to Jordan and maybe Egypt after Israel, but after hearing stories of backpackers being refused entry into those countries because immigration officials suspected they had visited Israel and were immediately refused entry and made to leave. Jordan and Egypt would have to wait.
Social media didn’t exist! And that was a blessing. We were never haunted by the need to constantly be plugged in to friends and the home we’d intentionally left behind. There were no ‘Instagram images beckoning us to follow the hordes to sites of mass tourism, or a digital universe to stifle our capacity for independent discovery. Destinations weren’t shared with influencers or ordinary travelers who packed the latest fashionable wardrobe for capturing self-promoting photographs beside iconic landmarks. Selfie sticks didn’t exist, so we didn’t have to witness people taking unnecessary risks for extreme selfies or ‘the perfect shot’ to garner as many likes as possible. Overland travel wasn’t regarded as a competition or a checklist in the ’70s, social media wasn’t a platform that existed to promote it. And hunting down Wi-Fi to access it was another hassle several decades into the future.
I’m pleased our generation didn’t have to think about the unchecked power of social media, and whether or not we had to succumb to the pressure of using it to influence or profile our travels. All we have besides the memories are a few fading photo prints. And that’s enough.
We also escaped one of the greatest cons of the century, and as a result, didn’t have to encounter an endless supply of discarded plastic water bottles along the way. If we found bottled water, which was rare, we saved and reused the bottle over and over. Mostly we quenched our thirst by drinking lots of coke and beer. When necessary we dropped a few iodine pills into our saved water bottle or canteen to purify the funky local water, but the taste was so horrid we reverted to beer or Coca-Cola. Ice was also forbidden. There were times when we were assured the water was safe to drink only to suffer terribly for it. Dysentery and vomiting was not fun and the combo together was pure hell. You just learned to live with a constant queazy stomach. Tetracycline was the cure-all and taken for all sorts of infections picked up on the road.
All the magic and adventure of the Overland Trail changed by 1979, when both Iran and Afghanistan became off-limits, the former due to domestic revolution and the latter to the Russian invasion. The ouster of Iran’s shah was marked with the burning of American flags, Levi’s and Rock&Roll were replaced with the traditional Chador and speeches by Ayatollah Khomeini. Westerners, particularly Americans, were no longer welcome. Meanwhile Afghanistan had come under siege from the Soviet Union. This magnificent country became a vicious battleground, and the paltry American hash and hostel revenue was replaced by significant U.S. military aid to the anti-Soviet mujahideen. The world was changing everywhere.
Today, the iconic markers along the Overland Hippy Trail have mostly vanished. The backpacker-friendly hostels of Kabul, Tehran and Kathmandu are no more. Cheap bus line travel had dried up with the closing of borders and political unrest. The Pudding Shop is still open in Istanbul but a far cry from its glory days of the 70’s. A few faded photos on the walls are the only memories left of that time. Afghanistan’s Chicken Street and Sigi’s, major stopping points for us backpacking travelers were both destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. The haunts and dives of old “Freak Street” in Kathmandu were ruined by the 2015 earthquake. The continuing troubles in Myanmar and the Middle East make them seem like nothing more than faded memories of a past life.
In 100 years like in 2124 we will all be buried, or our ashes will be scattered like our relatives and friends. So much of what we spent our adult life buying, collecting and saving will be scrap. Our homes, cars and memories gone.
After we die, we will hopefully be remembered for a few more years, then we are just a photo saved, and a few years later our history, photos and stories will disappear into oblivion. We won’t even be memories. If we just pause to analyze this notion, maybe we would see how wasteful the dream to acquire it all was. I’d like to think our approach to living, our ideas of life would be different, and we would be different people.
Always having more, no time for what’s really valuable in this life. I’d change all this to live and enjoy the walks I’ve never taken, the places I didn’t visit, the people I never got to meet, the smiles and hugs I didn’t give, kisses for our children and our loved ones, the stupid jokes we didn’t have time for. Those would surely be the most beautiful moments we’d remember. Yet so many of us waste our days with greed, selfishness, jealousy and intolerance. Thinking that was the answer.
Waiting, freezing before the Turkish Iranian border.
Pagan, Burma. Land of a thousand temples.
Hashish anyone?
Young Afghan friends.
A Happy Wanderer.
Because I travel…
As I grow older my once perfect eyesight has faded into a worrisome loss of acuity. What I hope is that loss is replaced with a clearer vision of who I am. A perceptiveness. I often close my eyes to visualize something better. Clearer. We all do. I close my eyes to remember the eye opening experiences travel has afforded me.
Because I travel I have a clearer vision of where I came from, but still have no idea of where I’m going. I have no intention of arriving, not that I have the complete say in that. I still want to see new landscapes, with new eyes.
Because I travel I get homesick for places I’ve never been, yet yearn for the past. I see how small I am in a much bigger world. I know who I was and walk toward who I will become. I embrace the unexpected, except at tax time. My surroundings no matter how foreign feel comfortable. I stand in the past of others and look to the future of myself.
Because I travel I love the open road, the hidden path. I challenge my preconceptions. I challenge myself. I can, I will, I am. Because I travel.
Because I travel I’m learning to slow down, to relax. Learning there’s more to life than more. I’ve witnessed tragity, I’ve shared joy. I’ve open windows, doors, and my mind.
Because I travel I have memories, I have stories. I write more, I create more, I see more because I travel. I want more but need less. I travel lighter, blend in, standout, question more, accept more.
Because I travel I can pretend that I have no schedule, no engagements, no commitments, no obligations, only the road ahead.
Because I travel I eat their food, embrace their customs, witness their religion. My eyes are open, my mind is open, and I now realize how blindly ignorant I am. Because I travel.
It’s time to see the world again even with a 20/60 perspective.
Made for Walkin’
Except for a couple of easy day hikes in the wilds of New Jersey with the Scouts, I’d done practically no hiking at all.
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Retrospect – A Moment Of Unexpected Kindness
Retrospect – A Moment Of Unexpected Kindness
By Kevin J. W. Driscoll (c) 2025
Reflecting on my life, filled with the highs and lows that have shaped me, there’s one memory that stands out as a moment of unexpected kindness. It’s a moment that occurred in the bustling heart of Boston, where the charm of the old blends seamlessly with the pulse of the new.
It was a cold winter evening in the late 1990s, and the city was cloaked in a thick blanket of snow. I had just left my office at the tech company where I had spent many long hours, pushing the boundaries of innovation. My marriage had already unraveled, and the solitude of my apartment was a stark contrast to the life I had once envisioned. The festive lights of Christmas did little to warm my spirits.
As I trudged through the snow, my thoughts weighed heavy with personal and professional troubles. I remember the feelings of tightness in my chest and the churning in my stomach and the streets, usually buzzing with the vibrancy of life, were subdued under the weight of the snowfall. I stopped by a small, unassuming church, its doors open wide despite the cold. As an Irish Catholic, the familiarity of the church provided a sense of solace, even if my faith had wavered over the years.
Inside, the warmth was a welcome reprieve from the biting cold. I found a pew and sat down, letting the quiet envelop me. There were only a few other souls scattered around, each lost in their own world. After a few moments of reflection, I noticed an elderly woman struggling to light a candle. Her hands trembled, the years clearly etched in the lines on her face.
Without thinking, I approached her. “May I help you?” I asked gently. She looked up, her eyes filled with a mix of surprise and gratitude. Nodding, she handed me the candle and the match. I lit the candle for her, placing it carefully in the holder.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice quivering with emotion. “My husband passed away last year, and I come here every evening to light a candle for him.”
Her words resonated deeply with me. In that brief moment, our lives intersected, and the weight of my own troubles seemed lighter. We shared a conversation that spanned memories of lost loved ones, the comfort of faith, and the quiet strength found in unexpected connections.
As I left the church that evening, my heart felt a bit warmer, my steps a little lighter. That moment of unexpected kindness—a simple act of lighting a candle—had a profound impact on me. It reminded me that even in the darkest times, there are glimmers of light, acts of kindness that can rekindle hope.
Looking back now, I realize that it was these small, human connections that truly defined my journey. The woman in the church, with her trembling hands and warm smile, taught me the enduring power of kindness. It’s a lesson that has stayed with me, guiding me through the ups and downs of life.
In a world that often feels disconnected, moments like these remind me of our shared humanity. They show me that kindness, no matter how small, can have a lasting impact. And so, as I reflect on my life, I cherish that cold winter evening in Boston—a moment of unexpected kindness that continues to warm my heart.
–30–
The Khyber Pass
Cyrus, Darius I, Genghis Khan, Mongols, Sikhs, Afghans, and British all crossed or vied for the Pass. Still to come would be its incarnation as part of the “hippie trail” to India, and its role as a supply route for the war in Afghanistan.
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