Note: As long as my supplies of evidence from the Wayback Machine hold out, I’ll be doing “Reminiscence Wednesday” posts. I only wish all such evidence was half as good as this one.
Hey, remember that one time I referred to my sister and myself as grubby kids? Lest you think it hyperbole, cast your eyes upon THIS!
Why yes, those are dead squirrels we’re holding by the tail. Hey, it could be worse–we could be retrieving them from the pouch with our teeth, or fighting over their rigor-mortified carcasses with the dogs.
Speaking of dogs, see that faux-foundation sheet of metal pried away from the house? It was impossible to keep that closed, since that was Babe the German Shepherd’s route to safety beneath our floorboards in thunderstorms or hot weather. Basically, if she wasn’t testing the UPS man’s bladder control or popping her jaws at bumblebees or trotting along beside the horses on rides around the farm, she was under the house rearranging the ductwork.
What I love about this picture (and there are so many things) is how happy I am to be holding a disease-and-filth-ridden dead rodent. And JJ’s so excited about it that she’s decided holding one dead squirrel isn’t enough, she’s reaching down for another!
You should know at least that I was in my nightgown because squirrel-hunting is done in the early, early morning, and I hadn’t quite transitioned into daywear by the time Dad returned. I believe the nightgown says “UNBEARABLY CUTE,” you know, with a cute bear on it, get it? I apologize that in this case, it isn’t exactly truth in advertising. There are far cuter things than a little girl gleefully risking all manner of gnarly parasites for the thrill of holding a cold, dead animal by the tail at 7 in the morning. I’m hoping that immediately after Mom snapped this picture, she spun around to the faucet and turned the hose on me.
Thanks to Dad for scanning and sending this on last week. It helps sometimes to remember that I didn’t come out of the womb a fully-formed elitist-academic effete city-slicker.
[...] gotten lice from my adorable pony than from one of the grubby kids at school. I mean, I was a grubby kid myself, but when you go to a school out in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of other [...]