In spite of growing up in Texas amid rattlesnakes, armadillos, road runners, jackrabbits, horned toads and the like, I have never really encountered an animal in the wild close up.
    
I did once work with a cheetah on an NBC-TV show, but a trainer had it first on a chain, then let it loose to prove it could outrun a car at 60 or 70 mph and cautioned me to remove my lipstick or the cheetah might attack, thinking I was wounded.
   
But I did have a delightful, wild experience on the beautiful restored Connecticut River where I sometimes visit my godson. When he was about six or seven years old, an “immature” American eagle would come nightly to sit directly on the flagpole at the end of the dock. The little man of the house named him “Wally” and this eagle arrived like clockwork every evening just as the sail- and motorboats came back up the river from Long Island Sound as the sun was setting. While cocktails were being shaken up, “Wally” would perform, leaving his perch sometimes to catch a fish and gobble it up before our eyes.   
    
One morning, however, when the late Ann Richards was visiting as a houseguest, we saw “Wally” early in the morning, on the flagpole. With the stars and stripes blowing below him, “Wally” seemed to have a broken wing. He appeared to be struggling to stay atop his perch. We watched him with alarm and then Ann went into her emergency mode, calling the Environmental Protection Agency, the local ASPCA and every wildlife group she could find in the yellow pages. “Wally” continued to flap one wing as if it were useless and he was teetering, but Ann couldn’t get any results and this made the governor very upset. We watched “Wally” with binoculars as he dragged one wing and Ann demanded help from the local police and everyone else. “We have a magnificent,
rare American eagle here and it is in trouble!” roared Ann.
    
Suddenly, “Wally” quieted himself. He seemed to know he had gathered an audience. Then he reared up, clutching the top of the pole with his claws, the flag flapping underneath him. He threatened to fall, dipped, then fluttered both wings and took off, soaring out over the river and back through the enormous treetops and over the house. He circled, gave us a good look, then turned, flying off toward the I- 95 bridge, and disappeared like the all-American he is.
    
We all felt utterly foolish, but Ann Richards, the eternal optimist was cheering. “Never mind; he’s OK,” she said, hanging up on the police chief of Old Saybrook.
     
We couldn’t really understand it, but we supposed “Wally” was just showing off because eagles are a big factor in the Connecticut River Valley and even have certain “eagle” celebrations annually. And eagles in that part of Connecticut are not rare; only much loved and protected. We discovered that “Wally” was described as an “immature American eagle” because it would take four years for him to mature.
     
This is the summer for “Wally” to come back in his maturity. And I often think, if only Ann could come back too.