... and Rubber Snakes Will Haunt Him I’ve mentioned before that my dad is a prankster. There are times his life seems to be full of “jocularity”, as Father Mulcahy on M*A*S*H calls it. Those of us in his family know better, of course, but he does seem to feed on his unnatural ability to play pranks on just about anyone. I read in a stand-up comic’s biography recently that a highly developed sense of humor is a sure sign of super intelligence. If that’s the case, Daddy should have been a charter member of Mensa. Grandma is one of his favorite victims. The summer he and Mom decided to make the one long driveway we had into a circle drive, he took his beat-up old Chevy pickup (known to many as “Lonnie Baker”) up to Grandma’s house to take her for a ride down to our place. Told Grandma he had to show her something, and he did. He went barreling down the dirt road, went right past our drive, and just as Grandma said, “Well, Joe, you drove past your drive!” he turned right off into the woods. Just made the trail for the new driveway, with Grandma bouncing around in the cab of the old truck hollering for dear life. When he finally came to a stop several minutes later, Grandma jumped out of that truck and ran into the house. She told Mom that Daddy had lost his mind. Daddy came in, laughing with tears in his eyes, and then took Mom up to show her the path he’d carved out for the new drive. Mom started laughing too, when she realized that Grandma had “helped” pick out the trail. I think squirrels are both Daddy’s least and most favorite animals. I have heard more squirrel stories out of him, anyway. In all the years Daddy’s worked for the electric co-operative, I think more transformers have been blown by squirrels than for any other reason. When there doesn’t seem to be a reason for a transformer to blow, I know he looks around until he finds a squirrel that’s been electrocuted. If he even halfway knows the customers whose house is nearby, they will find that poor squirrel usually sitting in an upright position. On birdfeeders, mailboxes, porch posts, you name it. Sometimes, he finds two dead squirrels, and he has put them somewhere obvious in different positions—fighting, buddy-buddy, sharing a story, whatever comes to his fiendish mind. Sometimes he doesn't have know the customer--just does it anyway. One time recently, he found the squirrel before it had stiffened up, and stuck it in a small tree by the front door of the house the transformer served. Unbeknownst to Daddy, one of the children who lived in the house was home sick from school, and he was watching Daddy walking around in the yard. As Daddy was positioning the squirrel with an arm around a small branch above its head level, the child called his father at work. “Don’t go outside, son,” he was advised. “I know that man, and he’s crazy!” The man happened to be a friend of Daddy’s, and told Daddy sometime later he’d been watched. Daddy still chuckles about it. Daddy’s one problem with the electrocuted squirrels? He hasn’t been able to make one hold a beverage can yet. He keeps one in the truck, just in case it works someday. Years ago, Daddy bought a 1961 Chevy Bel-Aire in mint condition. Such a beautiful car had to have its own shed, so Daddy built a small barn, forever known as “the Chevy Barn”, to park it in. This was the 3rd or 4th storage shed on his place. One spring, a few years later, Daddy found a nest of baby squirrels in his Chevy barn, and proceeded to chase them out with a broom. The little squirrels must have been close to maturity, but one was slower than the rest, and Daddy caught him (or her). He held that squirrel up so he could look it in the eye, and with his forefinger, gently tapped it on one cheek, then the other, all the while roaring, admonishing it to “STAY OUT OF MY CHEVY BARN!” Then he put the squirrel down, and watched it go running after its siblings. “AND TELL YOUR FAMILY! DON’T GO IN MY CHEVY BARN!” For several years after that, every time Daddy went out to the backyard in the spring and early summer, he could hear a squirrel chattering away. Nearly all squirrels look alike, but to this day, Daddy believes it was the one he caught loitering in his Chevy barn. And it was chewing Daddy out, big time. I don’t know how long squirrels live, but that particular one probably taught its children to stay inside while Daddy was around—“I know that man, and he’s crazy!” And their children and so on have all probably learned about Daddy. Not one has dared to try to nest in the Chevy Barn, either. Squirrels have really led him a chase, that’s for sure. Nothing he hasn’t earned. My sister and I grew up with a dog that chased one particular squirrel for years. For all I know, it was the same squirrel Daddy had chewed out. This squirrel would sit at the bottom of the driveway’s slope, chattering away at Patches, until the poor dog could stand it no longer. He’d go barreling up the driveway, barking like mad, and the squirrel would sit there, watching him until Patches got close enough to think “I’ve got him this time!” Then he’d scamper up the big oak nearby. And if squirrels laugh—around our house, we had reason to think they do—that old squirrel would laugh for a very long time. Patches would come back to the house, abashed and dejected, and if Daddy had seen it, Daddy would just pat his head in sympathy. And both of them would shoot looks full of daggers at that squirrel, laughing up in the oak. One of my uncles says Patches was the dumbest dog he ever knew. I grant you, he kept trying to play with skunks for years, until he got too old to go runnin'. He and Daddy got sprayed together one time, walking home in the dark, down the pathway from Grandma's. Patches used to scare the tar out of all of us, out on walks at night, for this black-and-white blur would come running up behind us, pass us, then whirl around to face us. We knew that's not skunk behavior, but you try to keep from jumping when you see a black-and-white blur out in the country at night. There’s not many who have not been a victim of Daddy’s at some point in time, especially the guys he’s worked with, or knows from work. Daddy always laughs and tells stories of some of the things he’s done to some unsuspecting new guy on the job. I think he does it to make them feel welcome, but it seems to have become a rite of passage. If you survive a trick by “that man”, you’ve done your time. And if “that man” doesn’t eventually play a trick on you, most of the guys who work there will figure you’ve got a problem. One new guy was very afraid of snakes (aren’t most people?). He has had to use Daddy’s work truck out on trouble call, and I guess he’s left it in a condition that’s shown it’s been “borrowed”. When Daddy found out about his phobia, he was in for it. Paybacks, y’know. So when Daddy checked the trouble call schedule to see when this particular young man was going to be on call, he had the perfect weapon. And sure enough, the young man pulled down the sun visor to get the clipboard out, and a snake fell into his lap. To hear Daddy tell it, the pore fella nearly died of fright. A couple of months passed, and Daddy had the opportunity again. Sure enough, he got satisfactory results with another rubber snake. Recently, Daddy related the story to a friend in Kansas. Not much later, he received a rubber snake in the mail, all alone in the envelope. He’s had 3 delivered the same way; he’s started thinking he better ask his friend just what is going on, but he’s a little afraid to find out… Before the most recent delivery however, he had the opportunity to use another rubber snake in his truck again. This time, however, he didn’t hear about it—he saw the results. The next time Daddy got into his truck, the head and tail of the snake had been removed. The tail had been stuck in the snakehead’s mouth, and the head was impaled with an ink pen on the dash. I’ m sure Daddy’s respect for the young man was increased with just that. However, the young man in question decided he would get more than a smidgen of respect from Daddy. He took that rubber snake’s body, and he buried it somewhere on the home place—or so Daddy thinks. When Daddy asked as to the whereabouts of the rest of the snake, the young man said, “Y’know, Joe, you are going to walk by that four inches of snake body every day for the rest of your life. You will be within 15 inches of it, every time you step outside your house.” Daddy still can’t find it.