The squirrels of Minneapolis were more cunning and brutal than even Emperor Ming of the Planet Mongo.
Or so it seemed to me each summer as I attempted in vain to raise a small garden in the backyard of my childhood home.
Those wretched creatures gamboled through my spring radishes and the tender shoots of cucumbers, leaving behind a howling desert.
They dug up young carrots and beets for the sheer pleasure of hearing my anguished whimpers while lolling on their elm tree verandas.
And they were patient; patient as only an unhallowed fiend can be, awaiting the right moment to spring their brutal machinations for optimum effect. I took especial pride in my four rows of sweet corn, and nourished it tenderly with bounteous amounts of fish meal and plenty of sweet garden hose water. The resulting ears were fat and full -- until the cursed squirrels got to them, which was always just a day or two before they were ripe for picking. The sight of those denuded cobs strewn about the dirt breached my heart nearly beyond repair.
And then there were the beefsteak tomatoes. The soil in our Southeast Minneapolis neighborhood was for some reason especially nourishing for tomatoes. They sprouted like weeds everywhere, and grew to tremendous heights without the help of man or manure. My beefsteak tomato plants gave me a great deal of delight, as they went from spindly pale green little things to tall husky stalks, with each branch bearing a half dozen little green buds that gave promise of luscious sapidity to come. The fruit grew to monstrous proportions, seeming to gain in circumference by the hour.
That peculiar pungent odor that mature tomato plants give off; it was as jasmine or patchouli to me! I freely fantasized each summer about who I would deign to rain my largesse upon. My mother, of course, would cringe before me in gratitude for such a thing. Perhaps if I rolled one over to Mrs. Matsuura across the street she might in return give me a half dozen of her pickled rice balls -- which I lusted after inordinately ever since her son, my friend Wayne, had shared one with me during a fishing expedition on the banks of the Mississippi.
Giving my hyperactive imagination full rein, I imagined going next door to the widow Mrs. Henderson with a few cannonball-sized specimens for her, which would result in her leaving me her fabulous fortune when she kicked the bucket. For it was well known in the neighborhood (or at least in my own fertile mind) that she was fabulously wealthy, having salted away a stupendous amount of war bonds during the Spanish-American conflict.
But as each rich red globe reached its peak of perfection, I would discover it had been disfigured by a single squirrel bite. Those monsters wouldn't eat tomatoes for sustenance -- no,they just bit each damn one out of pure spite! The gash this created in the tomato skin quickly turned them into hideous and mushy pulp.
My tears would run hot with rage, and I would utter every single childish curse I could think of. Had mom been within earshot I would have had my tongue holystoned with a bar of Fels Naptha laundry soap.
Oh, how I tried to keep those squirrels out of my garden! I asked old Sven, down the street, who grew a huge and luxuriant garden, how he kept the squirrels out of his. Simple, he said; you just hang a dead squirrel on a pole in the middle of the garden and the live ones give it a wide berth. I asked old Sven to get me a dead squirrel, which he did. But when I hung it up in my garden it attracted blow flies by the thousands and emitted a penetrating odor that my family did not appreciate -- so it had to go.
I tried putting dog manure in my garden; the squirrels just rolled around in it like it was cotton candy.
I sprayed everything with Tabasco sauce. The squirrels took to wearing sombreros around my backyard and singing mariachi tunes.
Nothing worked. So at the tender age of twelve I gave up on my agricultural ambitions. Otherwise I might have grown into a career of truck farming or selling fertilizer. But I never forgot my bitter hatred of those squirrels . . .
Years later, when I was visiting my parents at Christmas, I noticed a large bag of unshelled nuts. Nobody in the family was interested in taking the time or making the effort to crack them open, so I asked if I might have them. Because, you see, a diabolical plan had formed in my squirrel-obsessed mind.
In our backyard grew a large weeping willow. The thin drooping branches could not support the weight of anything more hefty than a butterfly. Tramping out through the ankle-deep snow, I took those nuts and super glued one at a time to the tip of a willow branch. Then came back inside to watch the fun.
The squirrels soon discovered the nuts, tantalizingly just out of their reach. They leaped for them in vain. They crawled as far as they dared down the willow branches, only to lose their grip and be hurled into the waiting snow before they could reach the prize.
"Yes, that's it, my pretties" I gloated by the window. "Keep trying. Heh, heh! You must be very hungry this cold winter day, and there is food in plenty, just out of your grasp. Hee! Hee!"
As I was enjoying myself, dad came over to see what I was doing. When I explained why and how I was revenging myself at long last, he only shook his head and went to get a spritz cookie, muttering to himself "
Mine barn er alle gale . . . "
