the top of a telephone pole is a good place for kids.

Like me, most of you probably dreamed of making a fort on top of a power pole, but also like me, you probably had an overprotective mother who was paranoid about electrocution and falling to one's death.

I'm not one for proving myself right, but if power poles were that dangerous, birds of prey would not be raising their young there.

Sidenote: The other evening, while driving home listening to my Learn Spanish CD and learning how to ask someone if he or she would like to go dancing, I killed a bird.  This erratic flock of birds recklessly flew straight into my path.  Given our mutual high rates of speed, one of the birds transformed into a puff of tiny feathers upon impact with the Toyota emblem on my car's grill.

After a few sleepless nights and 14 expensive phone calls with an animal therapist, I'm moving on.

STAREDOWN: pigeon vs. hawk.

I rarely get frightened more than three or four times in a day, but sometimes there's an exception. On my five-minute lunch loop last week, I caught a glimpse of two hawks on a telephone pole.   Naturally, I slammed on my brakes and nearly spun out in a nearby cotton field irrigation ditch.  One doesn't come across this two-for-one deal (BOGO, if you will) very often.

I walked down a dirt road toward the birds, and that's when the proverbial cr@p hit the proverbial fan.  (Excuse the language; I was terrified.)  One of the hawks flew off, scared away by an oncoming pigeon.  The pigeon landed on a wire next to the hawk.  This pigeon completely ignored two (2) clearly marked "HIGH VOLTAGE" warning signs, mind you.  Something told me he wasn't there to hang out and chat about Pinterest; he meant business.

I was frozen in my tracks.  In the distance I could faintly hear Old West music and the sounds of people locking their doors.  Something was about to go down.

The pigeon just stared at the hawk, looking deep into his soul.  Those 15 seconds seemed like 20 or 25 seconds.  Practically a lifetime.  Just when I thought there would be feathers, it was over.

The pigeon had made his point, and my camera caught everything.

(Attn: National Geographic - money talks.)