At first I found it strange, but a wonderful addition to the essay, that Ralph for having successfully mated a captive, brown pelican, was featured in the magazine Playboy. It was strange to me that such an organization, the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary, would be featured in a men’s lifestyle magazine. Then, reading on, I realized the descriptions of the bird were increasingly sexual. Gerard describes the pelican’s “soft breast,” and also further describes the relationship between man and bird. (229) To Gerard, and now also to the reader, Ralph and the brown pelican are the most perfect union. Which leads me also to believe that Gerard is hightlighing this essay’s strangeness.

A man for whom no one is particularly fond, has, and is, traveling the world. It is only when we learn about his divorce a number of pages into the essay that we come, possibly, to sympathize with him. Only after reading further do we come to realize is dimensionality. Through learning about his divorce we also learn about his marriage to Beatrice Busch, the daughter of August A. “Gussie” Busch, the president of the St. Louis Cardinals, Ralph’s attempt to expand the sanctuary, and the sanctuary’s groundskeeper, Chris Walls. (232)

After having met Chris, and after hiring five other paid employees, Ralph is accused of stealing money out the donation boxes. This further complicates the story. Because of Gerard’s tendency to do this–to leave us waiting, sure we’ll find the essay’s next quirk, she develops in her essays a sort of momentum which pushes the reader through.