MY SQUIRREL, DAVE OR DORIS WHICHEVER?

MY SQUIRREL, DAVE OR DORIS WHICHEVER?

I wrote this story in March 1998, while living in McLean, VA. I like to refer to the time as “My previous life.” With the return of El Nino predicted (maybe) this year, I’ll check the squirrel nests out in the woods across the street to see if it’s true.

March 25, 1998
We have a squirrel I named Dave or Doris depending? Last September Dave decided to build a nest for the coming winter in the biggest of the wild cherry trees that line the backside neighbor’s fence. He (a generic “he” for those of you that would be offended by this old male writer who thinks he remembers a calmer world) spent an entire day building the nest. He picked a section where two limbs met the trunk on the northwest side of the tree not very high off the ground. I tried to tell him that his choice wasn’t the best location and that he should consider picking the southeast side to be sheltered by the cold northwest winds due during the cold months to come. How was I to know that El Nino would blow warm wind and very wet rain from the south and southeast all winter long? Dave must have known best after all. The early farmers forecasted weather use the wooly worm, time bears hibernate, time the first goose flies south and how high the squirrels built their nests off the ground.

Dave cut branches longer than his body with green leaves attached from the trees around his tree and scurried down that tree, across the top rail of the fence back to the cedar tree. Up the cedar with his branches and that was a struggle. Then he jumped from the top of the cedar into his tree with fewer branches than when he started up. He laced them together with teeth and front paws. He then took the easy way down his tree to the fence. Dave always kept the same scurried routine that seemed to me to require a lot of wasted energy. I should rename him Scurry. I tried to explain to Dave that it would be easier to climb up his big open tree with the branch than to try and get a branch up inside a cedar and jump across with a branch. Would he listen? No, he would not. He could have done the job in one-quarter time by cutting branches close to the nest out of his own tree. The other squirrels building nests in trees down the fence used Dave’s tree for their branches. Dumb squirrels.

Once Dave finished I went up to the back bedroom to check out his construction and found it lacking in depth, height, and volume. He had built a lousy nest and I could not give my approval. I thought he was a typical city dweller with a nest like that and he would have been in bad shape in the woods this winter. The ground never froze solid once that winter and we had a very mild season. Dave did fine with his prediction last September. How do squirrels do that?

I always put out the empty peanut butter jars to watch the squirrels trying to get the last out of the bottom of the jars. The first jar was a big plastic Skippy with a little peanut butter on the sides and bottom. It took no time at all for the first varmint to show and circle closer until he licked the end and clean out all he could before getting the nerve to dive into the jar. About that time along came three others and the fittest won the rest of the offering. It was really humorous when the winners made it to the bottom of the jar too see a squirrel stretched out full length into a jar licking the bottom. Most times there is a fight for supremacy or just for fun. Who knows what is going on in a rodents mind? Dave being smaller never wins. But don’t feel sorry for Dave; after all he is a varmint, a rodent and a kin to a rat.

One morning in March, I noticed Dave sunning himself on the fence sound asleep. This was the first day with a promise of 68 to 70 degrees in several weeks. It had been 28 degrees last night. He looked like he would make a good Squirrel pie too me. Then at noon, while I was making my peanut butter sandwich, I noticed a squirrel with a mouth full of brown wet leaves running along the fence. As soon as he got to the cedar tree, up he went and then I noticed that Dave’s nest was missing. Not a twig or leaf remained. Dave was relocating the nest from the Wild Cherry to the cedar and needed old wet leaves to finish the job. Dave is probably Doris and she needs a new nest for the expected youngins. Only a guess, you understand. This is the first time I have ever seen a squirrel build a nest in an evergreen and use the old nest material. It just isn’t a squirrel thing to do. I could not give advice this time due to the density of the cedar, but I am sure she will goof it again.

CANNONS CAN BE DEADLY

Hot nights were a fact of life in the 1930s and I remember we had to find ways to cool off or suffer a sleepless night. Air conditioning consisted of opening windows, doors and blowing the hot air around with electric fans. If the mosquitoes were not out, we could sleep outdoors on the grass and hope for dew, chew ice and prey for rain. We did not have a screened porch. Most of the time we all got into our car and drove around with the windows open and hands out the windows. Bud would stand with his upper body sticking out and sometimes sit on the window opening with his hands on the roof. He just did that to make me think I was going to be an only son. Sometimes Dad used those long evenings of daylight to drive by property that he was going to bid on for his services as a land surveyor. Bud and I had our favorite places to go.

We liked to go to Hoover Field (Airport) just off old Boundary Road near US Route 1 past Arlington Cemetery where the Pentagon is now. It was on the right side going south. The airport was built on the swampy ground along the Potomac River and was the hometown of Washington DC’s mosquitoes. It would be safe to say the mosquitoes were measured by the ton per acre. If we were lucky we got to see the old Tri-Motor Fords and the new Douglas DC-3’s come and go. Eastern, American and Capital were the airlines of the day at Hoover. There were not many flights in the evenings and only the mail planes flew at night. If the breeze was off the Potomac, the mosquitoes were out we could not stop but, if the wind was out of the west, we could walk around and look at the airplanes. Since honesty is the best policy, we really liked to go there because across US 1 there was “The A&W Soda and Milk Bar Drive-ins.” The owner of the A&W was a little known man by the name of J. Willard Marriott, the inventor of the Drive In Hot Shoppe. Drive-ins were roadside fast food restaurants that used carhops (waiters and waitresses) to serve food and drinks to car occupants by foot and some by roller-skates. Wind permitting, we could sit in the car and have a carhop take orders and deliver to our car. They had a tray that attached to the door for the food and drinks. A&W was world known for its root beer floats made with their own brand of root beer and ice cream. We are talking about cream ice cream, the very fattest of fat cream ice cream and real true root beer made from real roots of the finest beer. They also made whole milk milkshakes with that same fat enriched ice cream so thick it came with a spoon. They would put three scoops of ice cream in a mixer with a splash of whole milk, which is milk direct from a cow, cream in, and flavoring. When the mixer got up to speed, it was done
with-lumps of ice cream left in. They had grilled fried hamburgers and hot dogs that would really fat soak the buns. We are talking about the finest American food money could buy. Root beer float, 15 cents; milkshakes, 20 cents; hamburgers, 10 cents; and hot dogs, 5 cents. I always had a chocolate flavored milkshake with vanilla fat in cream ice cream shake with a spoon and Bud had a vanilla milkshake. Bud always finished last and would say, “I still have some left” and I would have to listen to him slurp the last of his. Bud knew how to push my button. In those days Dad may not have had enough money for snacks and when he didn’t, we went to number two spot.

Our second favorite cool off place was Arlington Cemetery. The cemetery was filled with cannons and The Battle Ship Main Memorial had them in a ring around the mast. Cannons could be found on both side of every front door to every Federal and State Building, County Courthouse, Moose Lodge, VFW Hall, Town Circle and some post offices. Never trust an unloaded Civil War cannon that is just sitting with its wheels anchored in cement pointing out in defense of its possession.

Bud would play on top of the cannons by walking the barrel and balancing on the wheels, jumping off and climbing back on top. He never seemed to tire. I liked to play around the cannons on the ground. I would load and shoot the enemy coming up the hill in their endless attacks on my position. I fought the enemies of our country past and present and never was I wounded or even nicked one time. I have to admit the cannon I picked to load and shoot to defend my country was the same one Bud picked to run and jump off. To him the barrel was a runway to fly from. With a lot of cannons to choose, he had to have mine. If I moved, he did too; older brothers will never change.

One very hot Sunday found us at our stations-I defending, Bud jumping into flight. Bud had gotten so good at cannon walking forward he started going backward to add spice to his life and misery to mine. Bud decided to invent a new aerial maneuver by jumping from the barrel to a wheel, balance as long as possible before jumping to the ground. He felt he could turn around on the wheel and jump back to the barrel, maybe. Had he been able to do it, I am sure it would have been a first and a record to add to his long list of firsts for defying death. I was preparing to fire our cannon at the charging enemy as Bud was jumping to a wheel, slipped and fell between the wheel and the barrel, and was skewered in the right leg between knee and thigh by a very sharp hook on the cradle of the cannon used to put a chain on to pull the cannon into position or to correct its aim. I ran to Bud as I screamed for Dad. There Bud was, hanging helpless like a pig about to be slaughtered on Uncle Web’s farm. That was my big brother wounded, hanging and dangling off a civil war cannon unable to reach the ground. I got under him and supported his weight on my back. I cried and blubbered and screamed for Dad and Bud tried to comfort me telling me not to cry and worry he was OK. OK? He was hanging and dangling off a cannon on my back with blood all around. Dad was there in an instant I am sure and unhooked Bud. He told me to run for the car. All during the mad dash to the hospital in DC, Bud was thanking me for thinking of lifting him and calling Dad. I was the one who cried all the way to the hospital, and Bud was comforting me. Many stitches later and a tetanus shot for both of us, we went home. Why I got a tetanus shot, I will never know. Maybe there was a hospital special that night?

Bud carried two deep parallel scars an inch apart and about two and a half inches long in that leg for the rest of his life to remind us of the time many years ago when he was shot down and wounded in battle by a cannon. I saved my brother’s life under fire, and now I can’t remember if it was hot that night or not.

THE WOOL SWIM SUITS

I don’t like to swim in a pool, here at Smith Mountain Lake, or any beach no matter how wonderful it may be. It all goes back to my earliest childhood memories when I was totally brutalized by my parents. If that brutality were committed today to a child, the parents would have to serve a very long time in prison and deservedly so. The crime was The Wool Bathing Suit. There is no way to describe the pain of swimming in a wool suit in the surf or any place else. The wool suit was a major cause of death along with whooping cough, measles, and streptococcus of any thing, pneumonia, scarlet fever, infantile paralysis, TB, and all the other diseases of the day. Sunscreen had not been invented; we had Unguentine, a thick petroleum jelly to apply after burning.

Beaches were segregated in 1930s. Mayo Beach was a White beach next to Sparrow Beach for Coloreds. Blacks were called Colored in that part of Maryland in 1930.

My first remembered beach experience was when we went to Mayo Beach in Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay. We had a cabin on the beach that consisted of a wood frame shack with holes in the screen to let in mosquitoes and flies. We had an outhouse out back, too. We used a hand sprayer to wet down the cabin with Flit insecticide. (I wonder what was in Flit?)

I sat down in my wool suit on the sand as the tide was coming in and made holes in the sand to catch the waves in order to dry up the Bay. I would have done it, but the waves piled up so much sand into my seat that I could not move. I had to call for help to stand up. The pounds of sand stretched out the suit to the point Dad had to tie knots in the shoulder straps to raise the seat to its proper place. By the time I took it off for lunch, it had stretched twice its size. The sunburn prevented me from going out for three days.

One well remembered beach trip was when the family spent a week in a beachfront, three-story, bright yellow wood frame Hotel. Beach life had a routine as follows: Breakfast was at 5 AM for fishermen who could wear their fishing clothing. Breakfast at 7AM and noon lunch, men wore shirts, ties, and long pants, coat optional. Women and girls in dresses. Boys in starched shirts and pants. No one wore shorts to dine. Dinner was coats and ties regardless of the heat and we sat down at 6 PM. A black waiter would go through every floor of the hotel ringing the bell calling all to meals. There would be some kind of lard-fried fish at every meal along with potatoes. Vegetables were cooked in ham stock. Eggs were fried in bacon fat and were delicious. Maryland fried chicken and some kind of beef and ham served for dinner. This was in the days before cholesterol had been invented, so we were spared all the miseries of processed foods. The food was the best part of the shore.

After meals we had to wait two hours before we could go in the water. Everyone thought if a person ate and went into the water, he would get cramps and drown, die and be carried out to sea to be eaten by crabs and toothy fish. That would have been easier and a lot less painful than the next step of the day: To put on a very damp, cold, sandy, and larger wool suit. There was no good or safe way to put it on. By the second or third day, the skin was burned and raw from knees to shoulders, and the sand-clogged wool suit weighed a ton and had knots on knots. You had to pull the bottoms up and tighten the belt another notch over a raw skinless middle. That was when I knew I hated the beach.

You could swim or play till 11 AM, then off to your room-to change into lunch clothing. After lunch the old two-hour wait till you had to put on that suit which was wetter, bigger, colder, and sandier than before. Then back to the room to change for dinner by 4:30 since there was one bathroom per floor for all the guests. I do not remember how that worked. At this stage in life, I cannot even visualize how it could.

After dinner if the wind was off the ocean, it would be very pleasant and all would sit out on the large porch and smoke cigars. If the wind was off the land, all would have to stay inside or be carried away by the mosquitoes into their swamp where we would have our blood sucked out and then the sand crabs would pick our bones clean. At least that was how Bud and I had it figured.

By the time the week was over, that suit was so heavy with sand and water and stretched so big that I could not lift it off the floor by the shoulder strap and have the bottom clear the floor. I must have cried a lot that week. I am crying now as I remember the pain.

The year 1941 was and the last time we went to the shore as a family due to the coming war on December 7.

We started early in the morning on the first leg of our trip to the ferry at Annapolis, MD. There were no freeways or even three-lane highways in those days. We would have to drive through every city and town on a two lane road and stop for every left turn vehicle, stop signs, hay wagons, slow drivers and any other road hazards too numerous to mention. The ferry dock was where Sandy Hook State Park is now and close to the Bay Bridge at Annapolis. We always expected to drive right on the ferry without a wait, but usually that did not happen.

During the summer weekends, six ferry ships ran on a 15-minute schedule. Once on the ferry Bud and I would head for the bridge area and soak up the cool breeze. When the notice was given for all to go to their cars, I went. Bud would wait for the last minute, and I was sure he would be left behind and spend the rest of his life going aimlessly back and forth on the bay. He seemed to know how to pull my trigger, and I was always afraid for his life. He gave good reason for fear. Back in the car a new line was drawn on the seat for me not to cross less we touch.

I do not remember the beach or the water that time, but I remember the sunburn very well. I was a crispy fried untouchable. I could not sit or touch the car seat without pain. I remember the trip back on the ferry because the cool air felt good. What I did not know was how much the cool air dried out even more of my skin. I was very ill for a week and was a massive blister. Finally the pain left along with all my skin and any desire to go to the beach.

Ever since that trip, I NEVER went to the beach without a long sleeve shirt, long pants, hat and shoes and socks. Sunburn on the top of my feet was the last to heal.

I was grateful for the war years and gas ration, for that ended the beach trips.

I HATE BOOTIES

I HATE BOOTIES

At Smith Mountain Lake the gala of the year is called “The Home Tour.” The total volunteer event raises large sums of money for nine different local charities. It takes a year to put together and is funded by local businesses, organizations and ticket sales. Volunteers recruit the businesses and other volunteers recruit 8 to 10 homeowners to open their homes for the public to tour over a three-day weekend in October. All the proceeds go to the charities.

The homeowners are the true heroes of the gala. At their own expense they get their homes in top condition both inside and out. The homes get fresh paint if needed, carpets cleaned, and decorated by interior decorator businesses sponsors. The lawn is clipped, the leaves are vacuumed and gardens pruned. The homes and grounds are picture perfect for the tour.

The tour homes are mostly on the lake. We ticket holders can tour by car or boat. Touring by boat is quicker but some have as many as ninety steps from dock to house. I usually volunteer for dock duty while Shirl works the home. Dock duty can be very interesting but mostly a lot of fun if it’s not to cold with wind like last year.

One funny event a few years ago pushed my humor button. We had a very large, very expensive cabin cruiser come into the dock to tie up. The Captain was a demanding jerk so we had him tie off his monster himself. His knots were his knots and his placement on the dock was his responsibility. The dock was too small for his boat; we pointed that out to him on his arrival. While he was on the home tour, his boat’s antenna got knocked off or fell off on a piling. I think it hit the roof edge of the dock roof.

On the dock that day we had all retired volunteers consisting of a Navy Admiral, an Army General, two lawyers, a labor union organizer from New Jersey, and me. We all awaited the Captain’s return! He was livid and threatened a lawsuit for damages. That jackass wanted to sue an all-volunteer charity for an antenna. The Admiral and lawyer read him his rights both land and sea. The labor union organizer, in his thick New Jersey dialect, informed him that the antenna was taped in black electrician’s tape when he arrived and suggested he place it sidewise up his secret place as he leave as quickly as possible without further conversation. I was too busy laughing to say anything. There was no further conversation from him, unless it was well out at sea.

The home tour is a wonderful event for all involved. However I have no desire to see the stuff accumulated by someone else over a thirty to sixty year span. All the stuffed pillows, accent colors, wall schemes, kitchen appliances, bathroom tubs, fireplaces, beds with pillows, chairs with pillows, and pillows with pillows. All the homes are worth between $700,000.00 and several millions. A nice lake lot will cost over a million now. A $20,000.00 doublewide would be worth $1,200,000.00 on home tour.

The Home Tour at Smith Mountain Lake is a woman’s event. I am willing to buy a ticket and work a turn on a dock or parking cars but to go through homes is a real drag. My Honey can remember what every home she ever visited looked like by level, colors, stuff, stuffed on and in oversized furniture, walls, doodads, collections and names. My memory is of one home that had maybe a dozen exercise machines, bar bell weights and other torture machines bolted on the walls in a very large room. I am still curious what the owners or the kids must look like.

My biggest frustration is the paper booties we have to wear to go through the display homes. My feet are big, and the selection is poor in big sizes. Trying to put booties on over my rubber soled walking shoes is such a struggle as to make the whole thing torture. The drill is to approach the entrance where there is a box of paper booties awaiting for us sheep to try and find a pair to fit. My Honey is helpful finding me big booties but only because my blood pressure is probably showing. She keeps me from turning back or causing a scene. Then we enter the home and follow the persons ahead one way through the home. The ladies are talking, the men are glassy eyed, and if it’s Saturday or Sunday afternoon they are missing a good football game. All are in booties!

When finished, we are in front of the exit door and must turn in the booties in front of a witness. On to the next home and go through the booties again. I have learned over the years to be most obnoxious at the exit door to keep my first found booties. I take them with me from home to home and keep them at home in the safe until next year. Next year I’ll have three booties not worn out. Talk about a feeling of wealth!

I’m always happy to go home to my doublewide, put the three well-used booties in the safe, and have freedom for the next 51 weeks.

PS

This year, 2006 we were blessed beyond belief! I worked a dock on a cold, windy and rainy Friday morning. We had six boats all morning to dock. The boats all had their winter curtains up and heaters going so the passengers and crew were toasty warm and dry. There were eight of us on the dock. I was the oldest and slowest so I was able to pull the old trick I learned in the Army. Sat in the dock house and look busy with a pencil and paper pad.

I am proud to say I didn’t go though ONE house. No booties this year for me. I did drive My Honey to all the houses she wanted to tour and sat in the car anticipating her return. After 55 ½ years, waiting for My Honey is my best-learned skill.

The last house we visited, they parked us directly in front of the door in a large parking area paved with brick. Like those English mansions you see on PBS’s Masterpiece Theater. I got out and walked over to a group of men standing on the front porch to see if they were Honey waiting? They were and we had a laugh or two. The bootie box was behind me. I noticed that this year they were black and not blue. The first pair I picked up was big enough for my shoes. I asked why the change to black? I was told that this year all the booties are large since a small shoe would fit in a big bootie and they could never get enough big booties in years past.

I went home, opened the safe, took out the three well-used blue booties and put them in the trashcan.

Amen

“The great object of my fear is the federal judiciary. That body, like gravity, ever acting, with noiseless foot, and unalarming advance, gaining ground step by step, and holding what it gains, is ingulfing insidiously the special governments into the jaws of that which feeds them.” —Thomas Jefferson

A CHESAPEAKE BAY FISHING TRIP

Dad loved to take Mother, Bud and me fishing on the Bay and we always went at sun down and we always caught lots of croakers and spots. Dad would get some other family to go for fun and share the expense of a charter fishing boat out of Deal Maryland. They would always divide the cost and fish by the heads of families so that it was not too expensive during the depression.

We liked to go with Dad’s friends from the Kiwanis Club the best. Mr. And Mrs. Frank Miller, the baker was our favorite family with Mr. and Mrs. Earl Kirby of Kirby Dodge and Plymouth Dealership a close second. They were nice to Bud and me and would include us in their conversation and fun. Mr. Kirby would treat us to a five-cent soda before we left the dock and that was enough to endear us to him. Years later Mr. Kirby met a red haired young beauty, divorced the Mother of his children and his first love, to live a life of loud plaid jackets and bright slacks at the Country Club with the young red head. Mrs. Kirby got all she could but it wasn’t enough. I remember the discussion between Mom and Dad about how to handle the situation and they decided to give up Mr. Kirby as a social friend. I wasn’t sure what divorced meant but I knew it was bad.

The most memorable trip was with the Hohein’s our next-door neighbor. We only went once with them. Mrs. Hohein was a delightful outgoing person as I remember but Mr. Hohein was selfish and had no observable show of affection to daughter Barbara, two years my junior or Mrs. Hohein. He was a bank teller at Clarendon Bank just up the street. He must have been the one blamed for the expression, “He has the cold heart of a banker.”

We arrived at the dock near sundown on a very hot evening without a single breeze. We were sure once we got out on the water it would be cooler but that didn’t happen. It stayed hot and without a breeze we had mosquitoes too.

Dad was the only one to have a fishing rod and reel and it was a beauty. Split bamboo bay rod with German silver line guides and reel seat, and a free spool reel. He had bought it at a pawnshop in Baltimore for five dollars before he knew Mother. The rest of us used hand lines with two hooks attached and a lead sinker. I still have my hand line tucked away in my fishing supplies along with Dad’s rod.

Mother caught the first double set of croakers. That was because Dad always set her up first and she was the first in with her rig. We cought fish two at a time all evening long until Bud and I had to stop and rest. Our arms and hands were like lead from hauling up five pounds of fish so fast. Those hand lines are rough and combined with wet hands, we were loseing skin off our fingers. The way you fish with a hand line is to drop the line over the side of the boat and when the lead weight hits the bottom you pinch the line between your thumb and finger, jiggle the weight off and on the bottom and wait for the nibble but those fish hit even before it reached the bottom. Barbara didn’t fish, she just went to sleep in the cabin.Girls!

When we returned to the dock we got into the car quick to get away from the mosquitoes while Dad and Mr. Hohein paid for the trip and collected the fish. Once we were underway for home, Dad was cussing and laughing at the same time. He said to Mother, thinking we were asleep, “We will never go with them again anyplace. I have never seen such a cheap skate like Hohein. He thought the way to divide up the cost would be for them to pay by the head and since Barbara didn’t fish and wouldn’t count, he would pay one third for the trip and I pay two thirds. He wanted to divided the fish in half by families. He wanted me to load my tub by counting each fish. I told him to dump those damn fish into the tubs and take the the heaviest or just fill his to the top and we would take what was left.” That was when I went to sleep. Dad may have forgiven him over the years but he didn’t forget, and neither did I. Bud and I slept all the way home as was our custom.

The next morning I found Dad had cleaned a wash tub full of fish and had bundles of clean fish on ice ready to deliver to friends and relatives. He had stayed up most of the night cleaning fish and now was going to deliver the bundles. Mr. Hohein’s tub of fish was in his backyard with a chunk of ice covered by newspaper. He got started about ten o’clock and cleaned the few he wanted and some he gave away uncleaned to those who came to get them and the rest spoiled according to Dad. Dad said no one wants uncleaned fish. I loved my Dad and went with him to deliver fish to all the aunts, uncles, and fishing friends. He could have given away all those fish Mr. Hohein coveted and let spoil during depression times.

I was very happy to be a Rupert and not a Hohein. I was glad my stork was not a house off when he dropped me down the chimney.