The Wild Bunch

By TAD BARTIMUS

Shifting from one foot to the other at the ironing board, I spot them in the distance and stare so long I scorch a collar. Drinking coffee on the porch, I spill it on myself when they suddenly leap in front of me. Waking up in the night, I hear them singing and marvel at my luck.

The whales are here. A quarter of a mile from where I go about my daily routine some of the world's biggest creatures are frolicking with their new-born babes. In an age when the word "awesome" is abused to describe fast food, co-habiting with whales really IS awesome. Every time I see them break the surface I feel privileged; normal workaholic tendencies evaporate and I stand stock still until they dive again into their vast, mysterious world.

The neighborhood has a telephone chain: "They're headed your way, ought to be there in 10 minutes." Nobody bothers to say hello or goodbye, why waste time on small talk when you can watch one of the world's wonders?

When I see a whale I think of Jonah, Moby Dick, Ahab's wife. Long ago there was the Sunday school story of these leviathans:

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth…and (He) said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life…And God created great whales…and God saw that it was good."

Forget the ringing phone, forget the half-written check; the mundane can wait. In an over-populated world where we supposedly smartest creatures are burning up the Amazon, melting the polar ice cap, punching a whole in the ozone and genetically engineering our own clones, any contact with a wild creature is rare and precious and should never be ignored or taken for granted because it could be our last.

Recent efforts to save whales from extinction are having positive effects on many of the species but progress is tenuous. Some countries still ignore International Whaling Commission regulations banning hunting; many rogue whalers violate them because they know they probably won't get caught.

The humpback whales who migrate back and forth from Alaska to my neighborhood are not zoo creatures. They don't visit just for my pleasure, or to entertain other humans. Their ancestors were here at least 200 millions years before me and their habits are primal. But watch them for a while and you swear these are mammals who also know how to have fun.

Sometimes they disappear from the surface for days; other times they are a constant presence, swimming laps just off the rocky shoreline, balancing on their noses, jitterbugging upside down to their own Swing. On a still night, if I'm lucky, I can lay in bed and hear them talking to one another, slapping their tails on the surface, singing a mystery tune. Such magical moments lift humans outside themselves, remind them their place in the cosmos is as insignificant as a grain of sand, a drop of water.

Friends who've left behind a comfortable life on the high plains to become volunteer researchers for the Pacific Whale Foundation in Hawaii swear the whales "sometimes lift their babies out of the water on a flipper to show them to us. After centuries of being hunted and killed, they still seem curious about us and still seem to trust us. Incredible, isn't it?"

Going to Disneyland, seeing the Pyramids, climbing the Eiffel tower – these are all manmade thrills. Watching a whale dance is not. Next month they'll turn their always-open eyes toward the north and swim away to their summer feeding grounds. It's nice to know that, whether there's anybody here to welcome them or not, they'll come back.

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