Bear's Den: "Today's Washington & Squirrels - They're Both Nutty"

The other day, a buddy of mine mentioned that he was recently startled by a falling haniwa (squirrel). He wondered if I´d think it was a sign of some kind. But nah… as I told him, squirrels fall all the time. Yep. Just like the do´ns in Washington D.C. today, it´s all a part of being nutty, eh.

It got me to thinking about haniwas in general. They are one of the Master of Life´s most comical creations at times. I remembered, once, when I was a kid at my Uncle Carol´s house. He lived in town and it was unusually hot for June in Michigan – really hot – ninety-five degrees and humid. It was even too hot for the crickets to rub their legs together. We were seated in lawn chairs, beneath the shade of a huge lilac tree in his back yard. I was sipping Coke from a dew speckled 10oz. pale green glass bottle, and he was nipping Blatz beer from a long neck, brown. The scent from the flowers hung sweetly in the stagnant ambiance, and his salmon-colored 1960 Pontiac Bonneville, parked out in the drive in the sun, appeared to shimmer like it was on a slow-motion paint mixer.

We didn´t talk much, which was our routine. Uncle Carol was a guy of infinite wildlife knowledge. He´d grown up as a hunter and learned the craft, as other Indians had, in the Tennessee River bottoms of the 1930´s. As we sat there in quiet, we watched a fox squirrel slowly walk from the sunshine as if stepping on broken glass. It went to a spot in the cooler, shaded grass, close to us, and lay down. Then, it flipped over on its back and lay there, still… as if dead. I turned to my uncle and asked, "What´s the matter with the squirrel? You think it´s sick?" He snapped open his Zippo lighter that he´d carried all through WWII and lit a Lucky Strike. He squinted through the cloud of blue smoke that drifted lazily into the heated air, and pointed at the haniwa. "Naw," he answered in a Southern drawl, "he´s just hotter than a dadgown ole ´Lightn´n Car´. Squirrels do that when they get hot." He nodded assuredly, "You watch ´eem." Hmm, I thought, as I looked back at the squirrel. I knew that by ´Lighting Car´ he was referring to something akin to a souped-up, plain-Jane-looking 1940 Ford Coup, which buddies of his used to drive to run moonshine up into Kentucky from Tennessee. But the squirrel sure looked dead or dying to me. Then, after a spell of maybe 15 minutes, the haniwa got up and scampered away, as if nothing was wrong. I looked back at my uncle and he just smiled and winked as he took a swig of Blatz. It wasn´t until I was in my wildlife biology courses in college that I better understood this childhood event. The sweat glands on a squirrel are located on their feet between the foot pads and on their paws between their toes. So, I reckon that this squirrel, was just doing the equivalent of a two-legged flapping their T-shirt to get air when they´re hot, eh. Over the years, I´ve seen it plenty of times since.

Earlier this spring, while I was out on the front porch swing saying my prayers, I watched two fox squirrels chasing each other. This scene wasn´t a mating chase – nope – this one appeared to be a boundary war. Squirrels stake out a territory of up to seven miles and like a member of the dog family, they mark their turf by urinating on it. It looked to me as if some squirrel was trespassing, eh. The two squirrels were up and down the trees, racing from bare branch to bare branch, spitting and spatting, when one of them misjudged and fell. It caught tree limbs and branches all the way down, and landed with a solid tha-wump! It sat there, huddled and stone still, for several long seconds, apparently doing a short, rudimentary check. Then it got up and scuttled back up the tree to do battle with its opponent again. Um-hmm, and here´s a parallel with politicians and Washington for you – that of ´the golden parachute´.

Squirrels don´t get hurt from most falls because, like the one I described, they grab branches on their downward plunge. Sure, and like a cat, they usually land on their feet, too. But mostly, they use their tails as a parachute. Yep, in addition to being used as a communication device with other squirrels, a balancing tool and a warm blanket in wintertime, the bushy tail is Creator designed… as a parachute. Kind´a neat, huh? Now, they can and do get hurt from a bad fall, but those instances are rare. And speaking of rare (no pun to rare meat intended), squirrels can sometimes be carnivorous, too.

Primarily haniwas are vegetarians. They eat seeds, nuts, fruits, buds, mushrooms, fungi, lichens, roots, pine cones, leaves, twigs, tree bark and even grass, on occasion. Mostly, they like nuts which, well… makes them kind´a nutty. Still, they don´t ordinarily eat meat. But, also akin to Washington, and a politician, they´ll switch to whatever works for them... in the blink of an eye. If faced with hunger when their normal fare is scarce, they´ll eat bird eggs, snakes and insects. Yes´sir, that´s not too different from a politician who realizes that they can´t get re-elected by his regular party and switches to the opposite side, is it? But here´s the kicker… in regard to squirrels and politicians. The largest concentration of squirrels in the USA... is in Lafayette Park, across from the White House. Yes´um, some even call it the "Squirrel Capital of the World". So, a squirrel falling from a tree, well… to me, that´s just akin to the crazy antics going on in that burg, and, just like the do'ns in Washington D.C. today, it´s all a part of being nutty, eh.