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- Photo, Helen's Place LLC’s workshop - view of the wild birds surrounding Reunion Tower at dusk.
Helen’s Place LLC
This fall, we must dig deep and hang on to everything that we treasure in our life. For some of us it’s the birds flying south as winter approaches.
The good news is that the migrating birds are back in some places – like Civics Garden in Dallas, TX where the answer to the mystery of where they went in past years is finally solved. It turns out that birds change their routes and inspire us all with examples of adaptability and their delight in mixing things up. Who knew?
The success of “Lights Outs Dallas” – a program to dim the lights for migrating birds – is especially noteworthy for those watching the swirling display of wild birds surrounding Reunion Tower every evening in surprising ways.
The birds come in at dusk and dance around the sky, swoon down, then go back up to meet up with more birds to form different shapes across the vista. Then most, in one fell swoop, drop straight down at various angles into the trees.
A few drift down gradually and gently; there’s no requirement that a bird must follow directions.
All of this happens as the sun sets and there’s plenty of time to reflect on what the migrating birds represent: freedom and independence for all. There’s a lot to compare people to and think about.
The Changing Environment
Just like birds change their minds to make environmental variations in routes – people do too. We can learn from our mistakes and adapt to our ever-changing world.
The human condition changes often – going from good to bad and back to good again. This includes cycles of human evolution followed by civil war and destruction, only to build up culture and society again to tear it down once more. With family and friends too, we don’t know who will still be with us at the end. As people fall away we are left to wonder what our life meant.
This Thanksgiving, the American landscape is unsettling, and the idea of peace and prosperity seems far off. Symbolically, The East Wing of the White House was torn off by our President.
Trump’s action cements forever in American history, the idea that nothing can be gained from a dictatorial government – or for that matter a Christian Nationalist government, or a government ruled by billionaires.
We know that a true patriot would never have done this because it goes against supporting and defending the constitution and institutions of the United States which includes the cherished symbol of our national home.
The President’s actions do not represent the wishes of the American people.
We can only hope that Americans remember their mistake, and never elect a President like this again, declaring “Remember the East Wing!” now and for all time.
Some say there may come a time when we don’t have a free society anymore, however, encouraging signs make this unlikely.
It’s shaping up that as Americans coalesce around truth and hard reality caused by economic hardship brought on by the Trump Administration policies – they are speaking up in solidarity for freedom.
American Culture in Search of its Roots
The lines between fake and real blur in the use of propaganda and artificial intelligence (AI). This makes It more difficult, but not impossible, to figure out what the truth is.
This is one of the reasons people are getting off phones and social media and gathering with real people to hash things out.
We need more interactions, like town hall meetings, because personal communications and authenticity is what Americans crave.
Who knew that a grammar error or misspelled word could be a sign that a human wrote something (warts and all) instead of a chatbot? Or that we would have to wrestle with deciding if is it more important to have fake perfection or write in one’s own voice to get our point across?
The spunky among us weigh in – like Emma Thompson telling Stephen Colbert on the Late Show about what she said to her online writing assistant – “Leave me alone…I don’t need you to f*ing rewrite what I’ve just written! Will you f off? Just f*** off!”
We can hear Emma saying, “I know who I am…I don’t need you to tell me who I am or how to be!”
Signs of Hope
There are signs that sanity will prevail as many Americans join Indivisible and other protest groups across the country.
This includes millions of Americans standing up and protesting authoritarianism, racism, and particism. They are standing up for the notion that America is a melting pot of races and religions, and it’s time to get back to our roots.
Young people – some previously apathetic non-voters in 2024 – are now overwhelming supporters of Mamdani as Mayor of New York City. There’s also a wave of them signing up to run for government offices around the country.
New participation was apparent in one of the biggest democratic victories in political history on November 4, 2025 – where the issue of affordability ruled the day.
Young people now have something to believe in – fighting against the millionaires and billionaires for cheaper housing, food, insurance etc. They are claiming their birthright as American Citizens – working to change things and fight for a piece of the American Dream.
MAGA voters too have begun to realize that it was not Hillary, Biden, George Soros or some stupid notion of a “deep state” that was the enemy – but rather Trump and the controlling billionaire class all along. It appears that the Jeffrey Epstein files and the global sex ring cover-up – along with financial hardships that make living in the middle class impossible – finally helped some MAGA voters wake up.
Conservative older people are also changing their minds. With the passing of Dick Cheney, they got reminded that it’s not true that “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” He was, after all, a Republican all his life and then switched to vote for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election because he believed that Donald Trump was dangerous for the country.
Emphasizing the point, Trump was not invited to Cheney’s memorial service with all the other living Presidents – Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Biden.
Lessons That You Can’t Hide What’s Real For People
Marjorie Taylor Greene said on the Sean Spicer Show, November 14, 2025:
“Gaslighting the people and trying to tell them that prices have come down is not helping,” she said. “It’s actually infuriating people because people know what they’re paying at the grocery store, they know what they’re paying for their kids’ clothes and school supplies, they know what they’re paying for their electricity bills.”
You can fool a very young child that a nickel is worth more than a dime because it’s bigger – but try giving $2 back to an adult after taking $10 from them and giving $8 of it to a billionaire, and seeif they fall for the con. Instead, this scenario might make it into a late night comedy sketch, titled: “Come on!”
Yes, Donald Trump is looking more and more ridiculous and unbelievable every day as the “let them eat cake president” does everything in his power to ensure that millions of people don’t have food or health insurance, while pretending that he cares.
He continues to destroy the federal government, and cause rising inflation due to tariffs. Every action he takes is crass and inappropriate for an American president, including throwing a Great Gatsby party at Mar-a-Lago, and building himself a ballroom after tearing down the White House East Wing.
Conclusion
Although the current government is infuriating, thank God we have the grackle flocks and other wild birds for entertainment and comic relief.
Appreciatively, Reunion Tower was Green on November 4, 2025 to celebrate the success of Lights out Dallas. It’s wonderful to continue this tradition into Thanksgiving and holiday season with gratitude and the knowledge that at a time like this we can always turn to bird watching for comfort and joy.
And we also can accept that life is constantly changing.
In the bird world, for example, we have a new bird mystery: The Red Hawk is back from his summer down by the Trinity River – to circle around the Bank of America Tower – but he is alone. What befell his mate? Will she come later? Will the birds choose Dallas next year?
Yes, we know that birds can always change their minds again. Blessedly, we can feel secure in the knowledge that somewhere they’re flying through good times and bad.
Related audio/video recordings:
A new short video of the birds flying around the skies near Reunion Tower in Dallas, TX:
Helen’s Place LLC, November 15, 2025, “Wild Birds in Air.”4950D999-973D-4298-AF19-819E560766A4
Other related articles you may be interested in:
Article documenting the Dallas year of 2017 when the birds were thick as thieves:
D Magazine, S. Holland Murphy, December 08, 2017, “What’s Up with the Birds in Downtown Dallas?”
A Helen’s Place article that began the quest to figure out a mystery about the wild birds in downtown Dallas:
Helen’s Place LLC, October 31, 2021, “Starlings Missing from Citizen’s Garden; A Migratory Mystery.”
Revisiting some difficult situations we may find ourselves in during Thanksgiving:
Helen’s Place LLC, November 30, 2022, “America’s Cycle of Gratitude and Vigilance is Complicated.”
Helen’s Place LLC is an information and educational materials company celebrating English Language Arts, Cognitive Science and the love of birds. It’s the maker of printed instructional, educational, and teaching materials for children and adults in the field of English Language Arts and Cognitive Science (Elacogn).
It considers itself as a cog in a wheel consisting of individuals, companies and organizations holding the line to remember and fight for the American ideal of freedom and independence for all.
Your comments are greatly appreciated. Send them to Helen’s Place LLC via email to info@helensplacenet.com. We’re always interested in learning more about you and the issues that are important to you.
