By the Way

Just Thinking By The Way Squirrels make my wife nuts.

By Emory Jones

I’m going out on a limb here to say that my wife, Judy, an otherwise sweet and often helpful woman, hates squirrels. And she hates them with the same enthusiasm most people reserve for mosquitoes. You know how when a suicidal squirrel runs out in front of a car, most people slow down to keep from hitting it? Well, Judy speeds up. And when she misses is the only time I hear that good woman cuss. To me, it’s nuts to despise the poor little fellers that much, but to Judy, a squirrel is just a rat with a nicer tail. I think the reason she hates them so much is that she loves flowerpots and bird feeders, both of which are natural enemies of the squirrel. If my figures are correct, since we married 44 years ago, she’s spent $14,947.14 on so-called squirrel-proof bird feeders, and that’s money we should have squirreled away. The only feeder that ever worked was the one that came with half a stick of dynamite, but that model has since been discontinued. Growing up, I used to hunt squirrels, and my grandmother would make squirrel dumplings from the ones I brought home. As I recall, that dish was usually served with a side of shotgun pellets. In those days, if the hunting was good, the boys and I might shoot a dozen or so squirrels over the course of a winter. One year, my cousin Wayne bagged 36, and he was deemed a legend.

But Wayne’s record might be considered pathetic these days. Because from what I recently read in the paper, each hunter can now legally bag up to twelve squirrels per day from August 15th through February 28th . Now, if my math is right, that’s 198 days in which every man, woman, and child of legal age can lawfully dispatch 2,376 squirrels annually. That’s a lot of dumplings. Judy insists that 2,376 wouldn’t make a dent in the squirrel population around our place. She feels the legal limit should be even higher. By the way, did you know that a group of squirrels is called a scurry? However, referring to them as a passel, a gang, or even a great-big bunch—as Judy does—is also acceptable. A baby squirrel is called a kit by professionals. After that, they’re known as juveniles—the squirrels, I mean. Not the professionals.

Anyway, I have a soft spot for squirrels. That most likely comes from the two I kept as pets when I was a boy. They had fallen from their nest, and I fed them milk from an eyedropper for weeks. I even took little Skippy and Snickers to school for “show and tell.” Now you may not believe this, but squirrels have four chiselshaped, razer-sharp incisors in their mouths. I found this out the hard way the last time I tried to feed Snickers with that eye dropper. Instead of being grateful, Snickers, who was now a juvenile delinquent, clamped down on my finger with all four of those long teeth he’d apparently grown overnight. Seeing how fun this looked, Skippy did the same thing to that piece of meat between my thumb and forefinger.

I sprinted out the door flinging my arm and howling like a man with two squirrels attached to his hand. I never saw Snickers or Skippy again, but the scars they left remind me of them every time I wash up. Knowing how much Judy hates the furry little creatures, you can understand my surprise when I got a call last week saying she’d been detained for feeding squirrels in the park. Turns out, she was feeding them to our dog.

Emory Jones grew up in Northeast Georgia’s White County. After a stint in the Air Force, he joined Gold Kist as publications manager. He was the Southeastern editor for Farm Journal Magazine and executive vice president at Freebarin & Company, an Atlanta-based advertising agency. He has written seven books. Emory is known for his humor, love of history and all things Southern. He and his wife, Judy, live on Yonah Mountain near Cleveland, Georgia.