Out There: Stories from the Woods

By Christopher Miller

We have a lot of finches.

My wife always wanted to buy a finch feeder, or finch sock. It’s basically a sheer-white woman’s stocking filled with tiny black seeds for the birds to eat.

As I write this week’s article, we have three little finches enjoying a snack of seeds.

As I don’t know much about finches aside from their beauty and appetite, I decided to write about other famous finches, or rather, Finch’s.

Atticus Finch
This Finch is a fictional character in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. He is a lawyer and resident of fictional Maycomb County, Alabama.

Despite threats from the community, Atticus represents Tom Robinson, an African-American man in his trial where he is falsely charged and accused of the rape of Mayella Ewell, a white woman.

Tom is later convicted and killed while trying to escape custody.

Trust me – this is a very bare-bones synopsis of the story!

J. Pierrepont Finch
Are there any musical theatre fans out there? Or maybe I just want to toot my own horn for auditioning and being in a musical my senior year in high school. (I seriously don’t know what I was thinking, but it was an amazing experience).

J. Pierrepont Finch appears in the 1960s musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. This Finch starts off as an ambitious young window cleaner who reads a book by the same name of this musical. He begins his career in the mailroom and schmoozes his way to the top of World Wide Wickets, the company that assembles and sells…wickets. Whatever a wicket may be.

Oh and if you were interested, I didn’t play the lead role. But I did learn how to sing, dance, and act for three hours in a three-piece suit.

Sharif Finch
This famous Finch is a linebacker for the New Orleans Saints and a record-breaker at Temple University, his alma mater. While at Temple, he played 53 career games, which is tied for the most career games in Temple football history.

He was signed by the Tennessee Titans (my brother’s favorite team) in 2018, but has also played for the Cincinnati Bengals, Las Vegas Raiders, Chicago Bears, and New York Jets.

Francis Miles Finch
Mr. Finch, or the Honorable Finch as he became known during his judgeship, was a poet, academic, and judge.

One of the most famous things he is remembered for today is a poem written at the end of the Civil War called “The Blue and the Gray” representing the soldiers of the North and of the South.

The poem ends showing a sense of equality for both parties of the war, “Love and tears for the Blue, Tears and love for the Gray.”