People that Hate Squirrels

I have some backwoods country folk friends that hate squirrels. They HATE, HATE, HATE squirrels. If you say the word "squirrel" around any of the family they will immediately let out a barrage of profanities about "tree rats", "varmints", and a series of why-it-is-good-to-kill-anything-that-might-interfere-with-your-garden-or-attic lectures.

I mean these people are obsessed. It is very comical. When I hear a gunshot in the neighborhood I assume it is one of them killing a squirrel.

The other day I heard the dad chewing out the son for shooting a squirrel and not even throwing the carcass over the fence. The son apologized and promised to not leave it lying in the garden next time.

Actually, I'm surprised he threw the carcass away at all, because I know this young man likes to eat dead squirrel. I've shot and ate squirrels a bunch in my younger days.

So I culled a few facts from the web.

There does exist at least one Squirrel hatred group.

Squirrels are considered one of the 10 most intelligent animals on the planet.

Squirrels live in symbiosis with oak trees and are most responsible for their successful propagation across North America.

Squirrel brains are good to eat with scrambled eggs for breakfast. (According to many observations made by Adena watching her grandparents in early Alabama mornings.)

Personally, I like squirrels. I think they are cute and playful. One scraggly-tailed one my wife has named Alvin came up to me this morning and barked at me all sassy like - till my dogs came and chased him away.

Squirrels are cool. Spread the word.

Loss of Desire, Loss of Truth, Loss of Both

Sitting in a high school psychology class as a kid once, after I replied to the teacher that I indeed could tell when people lied or told the truth, I got nearly laughed out of the room.

Certain people can detect lying. I developed a certain amount of this skill growing up. Interestingly enough, many people learned this perceptibility as a child growing up in families where discerning the truth felt essential.

Nowadays, I'm not so sure I ever was good at detecting lies or truths. Worse - I don't even care. Desire for truth itself has faded.

I may be molting in the squeeze between cynicism and despair.

Is this what getting old is about?

Desire. Let's pick a basic one. Sex. All my life sex was something that had to be controlled, minimized, and suppressed. Except in marriage where it's nice, but controlled still in a somewhat different way.

Now I find after years of suppressing desires themselves, these desires are respondinging. They are fading. I'd be happy to have some desires.

Food doesn't appeal to me. I have no passionate hobbies. Everything is pretty much boring. Drinking and catching a buzz has gotten old - again. I don't even desire to play music much anymore. I've about given up on it. Is this what growing old is like? Or is this just my old friend Mr. Depression cementing his roots into my arteries?

Don't know.

But I do know this (tip-o-hat to Caveman Lawyer) - I don't like this feeling of getting old.

Truth? Love? Sex? ... Eat? drink? And be merry?

My Grandfather often would quote to me as a child the whole last chapter of Ecclesiastes in the Bible. There is a warning there of years to come when a person "has no pleasure" and when "desires fade away." That part of the quote used to puzzle me. I just couldn't fathom it.

I feel it now.

I stand face to face in a doorway to the last phases of my life.

It looks like big, dark and empty.

I don't want to go in.

(But of course, I just can't stand here looking stupid either.)

Joy

Well, yes, I am a grandfather now. And 50 years old. This boy is cute as a button though. He's sharp and intense like his father too. Adena and I were blessed enough to go to Prague and visit this little "real McCoy" and his parents. I'll admit, he is the highlight of my affections for now, and the most endearing thing I've come across since the birth of my own children.



I haven't fully decided yet how this all affects me other than the realization somewhat of the adage "it's NOT about me". His presence still causes a lot of reflection on my part - a person who is unhealthily over-reflective anyway perhaps. Having a whole 'nother generation forward looking at you in face, cause one at least to wonder about how well they have done so far in preparing the whole this child will enter into. I do have my own regrets in life. Now they lurk about in my mind as little demons hoping to haunt me through all the "possibilities" that could have been awaiting this young child.



However, I didn't make the world, I'm just living in it. Vinnie will have to face all the same problems and pains we all do. Hopefully, he can find the joys also, and they will outweigh the costs.



Joy. That must be the measure of successful living. How much joy have I encountered, encouraged, and invoked in others. Joy. If I can find just a little of that daily, and look back and find it as an after-flow trailing through my life - then I will come out in the balance.



For now, a little person follows behind me two generations back. His name is Vincent Andrew Sanders. He is a joy - to me. My prayer is for an abundance of joy to follow him through life.

For more pictures of Vinnie you can dig through an assortment that I and Alena have each posted for public viewing.

Enjoy.

You can call me Vinny

Well, yeah, I am pretty cute huh?