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In later generations when the Goessel High School built a gymnasium and had a basketball and football team, our mascot got into trouble. The bluebird is not a fighter. When our bluebird boys were licked by the neighboring town’s tigers, the newspaper report called our boys bluejays. This was an insult. We as a Mennonite community claim to be happy, peaceful folk and wanted no relation what-so-ever with the egg-sucking bluejay. Invariably the bluebird and bluejay names were confused.

We have a cuckoo in Kansas with the nickname "rain crow." I remember one day on the farm when it was time to cut the alfalfa. At breakfast the radio weather forecaster said, "No rain in sight." We prepared the mower and I sent my oldest son into the field to cut down alfalfa. Not long after he had started I heard a cuckoo calling. Looking around, I saw a cloud bank in the west. Quickly I sent one of the younger children to the field to tell Junior to quit cutting alfalfa. That evening we had the first good rain of that spring. Ever since then I have respected the cuckoo, although he is shy and retiring. The Lord says about people like that, "Thy Father who seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." And I think many times when we see people who are not outwardly forward like some others are, we think they’re a little cuckoo. Yet, someday they may be better rewarded than those who always bold and confident.

The house wren in an enthusiastic little bird. In fact, Johnny wren is to me the symbol of enthusiasm. When Johnny starts singing he sings so hard that he shakes all over. And when Johnny and Jenny wren start building their home they work so hard that they fill their nest box until the twigs stick out of the opening. I have watched them fill a 14-quart sprinkler can full of twigs. This sprinkler can was upended over a garden post, and they just filled that can full until the sticks hung out of the opening. They did not shirk their work. Johnny wren is as enthusiastic about his singing as about his work.

One day when speaking to a group of boy campers a little youngster raised his hand and said, "Mr. Birdman, I have read that Johnny wren is a henpecked husband," I answered, "I have read that too; I know Johnny wren is henpecked. But you and I can learn even from that. Let’s not let it get us down if we turn out to be henpecked husbands, let’s just keep singing!"