Editor's Note: Thunderbird Variation 1: Inducements is the first in a series of four installments. The remaining installments will be released serially in upcoming Blackbird Flights through 2027.

It’s been observed that men of a certain age take an interest in birds. I’m in no position to refute this. After my father died, I felt compelled to identify the species around my home—the dark-eyed junco, the bounding house finch. Through a pair of binoculars I saw a line from Jim Harrison, also newly departed: “Birds are holes in heaven through which a man may pass.” This essay began as I watched Smokey and the Bandit with my son. I wondered about that bird on the flying Pontiac. Where did it come from? Even Burt Reynolds’s mustache seemed avian. I wasn’t yet thinking of urban design or segregation. Or the thunderbird of countless Native American stories, so often associated with loss. Nor was I thinking of the adoption of technological systems that undermine our quality of life, that take us further from ourselves. For that I needed a bigger essay. Or an essay built from component parts. This part is the first of them.