Overview:
My friend and racing pigeon partner for the past 6 years or so is 71-year-old Mark Karges of California a retired high school teacher and champion wrestling, coach, innovative urban farmer, pigeon lover, and champion racing pigeon enthusiast. A Christian who daily lives his faith and life based upon peace, love, joy, and generosity. Shared what is good without reservation, his knowledge, the yearly abundance of his productive urban fruit and vegetable garden, and last but not least his Champion racing pigeons which were selected, cultivated, and successfully tested with great care and patience over decades. Mark the coach assembled, methodically trained, and fielded for almost four decades, winning racing pigeon teams, at the club, combine, and national levels.
Fate, it would seem may have brought us together even though the reality is that Mark and I have never met in person. It seems to me that Mark and I were destined to become collaborators in the sport of racing pigeons but that collaboration has been at a great distance facilitated by digital technologies including email and zoom along with my trusty Bell Canada actual copper landline.
Some seven or eight years ago I was working on an article about the famous Mexican inbreeding wizard Mauricio Jemal and as I scoured the internet for information on Jemal I stumbled on a website that belonged to Mark Karges, via a google search that highlighted the term “Mauricio”. I thought to myself “It’s a long shot but might this individual have named his champion bird after Mauricio Jemal” It took me a few days but I did finally contact Mark Karges and as I attempted to introduce myself and my reason for calling Mark immediately cut me off and interjected:
To Read the Full Story, please open the Story Book below.