dontravis.com
blog post #624
Image Courtesy of Stockfreeimages.com
I’ve
been posting this blog for something over twelve years, and I can count on one
hand the times I’ve missed a posting time. It’s always been because of illness
or some other emergency, but this time, I simply let it get away from me. I’ll
blame it on my TV going out and an ongoing fight to get a new one delivered and
set up… no mean task for the electronically challenged. Took a solid week.
You
have my deepest apology for my mistake.
Here
we go again with my tale of Buddy. As I said last week, this is therapy for me.
****
BUDDY,
THE GRAY SQUIRREL
A
Biographical Story in Two Parts
I only recall going on one
other squirrel hunt in my life, and that was in the following spring, which
seemed no less freezing at that time of the morning than the previous fall. We
didn’t bag any squirrels that hunt, although my father did find a baby squirrel
so tiny, it still didn’t have a coat of fur.
He held the naked little creature
in his hand. “You want it?”
“Why was it just lying on the
ground?” I asked.
“Something probably happened to
its mama, and the little guy got pushed out of the nest somehow.”
“So the mama’s gone?” I asked.
“Most likely. You wanna take
it, or do you want me to put it out of its misery?”
“No!” I said, a ripple of fear
rolling up my back. “Don’t kill him.”
“If we take him home, you’ll
have to take care of him.”
“How?”
“Feed him with a bottle dispenser.”
“Huh?”
“You know, the kinda bottle
cap you use to dispense medicine. Has a rubber thing on top to squeeze.”
“Oh. I can do that. What’ll I
feed him?”
“Milk, at first.”
So my dad put the helpless
little creature in his warm jacket pocket, and we headed home for an adventure
that lasted a couple of years.
For the next few nights, I got
up almost hourly to take the little creature—which we named Buddy—and fed him
milk through a dispenser cap. Each time I crawled out of bed, I was certain the
squirrel would be dead, but he persevered… and grew.
After he was weaned off milk,
my mom took over the task of feeding the little guy at more reasonable daylight
hours. I don’t recall what she used to nourish him, but it worked. He kept
growing. We were reluctant to let him outside for fear a hawk or something
would get him. So he lived in the house.
He slept with me at night, and
roamed the house… usually hovering close as I played. Sometimes, he played with
me. Those were the days when I was fascinated by little plastic dinosaurs, humans,
and other animals. The dining room windowsill was my favorite hangout, and
Buddy liked it too. Often as not, I’d get into the swing of a play-story in my
head, when he’d butt in, scattering my story characters all over the place and demanding
his share of attention.
Surprisingly my mother put up
with this… until Buddy got so big that climbing the curtains tended to rip them
to shreds. Then she put her foot down. Outside.
That was a catastrophe, at
least to me. How would he live? Something would get him. Eat him. (Surprisingly
enough, my father hadn’t suggested that we do exactly that.) She pointed out
that we had five oak trees in the yard, all of which could be reached from the
roof of the house except for one.
So, sniffing back tears, I
took my four-legged pal and placed him on the bole of one of the oaks. He froze
for a moment, and then scampered up the tree and disappeared into the foliage. Convinced
I’d seen the last of my friend, I waved a sad goodbye and went back into the
house.
How wrong I was. Buddy thrived
in that environment. There were more acorns than one squirrel could handle. A faucet
in the front yard leaked enough so a small puddle at the front afforded him water
whenever he had the need. He hid in the trees and chattered happily at anyone
who entered the yard.
One day, as I played beneath a
tree, I was startled when something fell onto me. And there was buddy, perched on
my shoulder, as big as you please. And he stayed right there, adding his
chatter to mine as I went about whatever game I was playing. And that
established a pattern. I’d come outside, and he’d come for a visit… and a
treat, of course, something my mother concocted for him.
I think Buddy had been with us
for something like a year when one of my mom’s uncles gave us Boots, a
beautiful collie that was reputed to be the best squirrel dog in Arkansas. (Don’t
know how she’d stack up in Oklahoma, where we lived.) Wherever she stood in the
world of squirrel dogs, she was down a few notches by the time she went back
home.
Of course, Boots discovered
Buddy the day—probably the hour—she came to the house. And Buddy discovered
her, remaining high in the trees and venting his spleen in agitated squirrel
chatter while she barked non-stop. No more riding on my shoulder or playing
with me. He stayed in the trees.
Then a game of another sort
began. One oak tree at the back of the house leaned quite noticeably. One day,
we heard Boots putting up such a racket, we went outside to investigate. There
was the dog jumping and wiggling in agitation, and there was the squirrel
sitting on the bole of the tree just out of reach, resting on his hind legs,
forelegs folded as if in prayer while he nattered at the frustrated dog. They played
that game often after that. I’d see Boots getting a running start at that oak
and run halfway up the slanted trunk while the squirrel scrambled to get out of
the way. The little rodent enjoyed the game. The canine did not. I’m sure she
was worthless as a hunting dog by the time she went home. Or maybe I’m wrong.
Maybe she was more determined than ever to help catch any squirrel she could.
Buddy was with us for around
two years or so. Then one day it dawned on me that I hadn’t heard any chatter
and hadn’t been joined at play for quite some time. We never found a body or
any clue to what happened to my childhood friend. I can only hope he expanded
his horizons and discovered a seductive female of his own species and lived a
long and fruitful life post his childhood at the Travis household.
And so ends
the story of me and my rodent pal, Buddy. At the time, I was a sickly kid and a
loner, so the little squirrel’s friendship was especially meaningful to me.
Thank you for living through it with me again.
Stay safe and stay strong.
Now my
mantra: Keep on reading and keep on writing. You have something to say… so
say it!
A link
to The Cutie-Pie Murders:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ambxgy7e5ndmimk/CutiePieMurders%5BThe%5D.zip?dl=0
My
personal links:
Email: don.travis@aol.com.
Facebook: www.facebook.com/donald.travis.982
Twitter: @dontravis3
See you next Thursday.
Don
New Posts every Thursday morning at 6:00 a.m. US Mountain time.
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