"Birds of a Feather Flock Together."

It's the time of year when birds are migrating back up North and soon students will be returning to their respective homes from their months away at school. My youngest brother, Kevin, has been calling me more often now, buttering me up so I won't mind the tedious task of getting him from the airport in three weeks. Arrival Time: 11:50 p.m. CST. You think he wants to get out of Los Angeles fast enough? As my lovely grandmother Celeste would say, "California is the land of fruits and nuts, in more than one way," so I'm sure he's just looking for some good Midwest R&R. She's just so uncannily inappropriate.

The funny thing about birds flocking together is just that. Birds can't mate with other birds unless they're of the same breed. There's no such thing as a hybrid bird, a hybird. But I've found that this saying, which aims to say, "Those of similar taste congregate in groups," has in the past tended to be true. Yet now, less people accept the idea of being (ha) pigeon-holed (ha) into one group. 

Pop Culture Reference: In the relatively new musical comedy television show Glee, Coach Sue Sylvester (played by Jane Lynch) makes the point that the Glee Director, Will Schuester (played by Matthew Morrison), is breaking up the hierarchy of high school politics by blending athletes with theater geeks. "Kids like to know where they stand," she says, and it's true, when you're younger, you do like to know where you fit in, even if it's at the bottom. Even now with a few years to go until my 10 Year Lake Forest High School reunion, I know that the same birds won't be flocking together. We'll have moved on, like people do, and we'll have found knew friends, some with like-minded interests and some who you love because they stir the pot unexpectedly. And maybe that's just a different version of birds of a feather flocking together, but I don't think so.