A Visit back to Wing

I WENT BACK TO YELL COUNTY recently, to visit my Big Bro. He always keeps a project going, and he thinks through each step in detail. This time, his project was to get rid of a very intelligent animal. His house has a small room off the porch where the cats sleep. This mysterious animal was eating the cat food. He expelled the cats for the duration of the project, and had tried a number of ways to catch it, all to no avail.  A home-made armadillo trap, then a wire box trap from Walmart. Each time, the bait, cat food, was all gone, and the animal was gone. This animal had carried off enough bait to feed an army.

     This is where I came into the picture. We discussed the problem in detail, for the better part of a day.  Since this animal had already defeated two traps, designed for larger type pests, such as a stray cat, or a raccoon, or a possum, we determined that it was smaller. And since it had already carried off tons of food, we assumed it was carrying off the food and stashing it in the under part of the house, which was connected to this room. We put our heads together, and over the bulk of the rest of the day, we decided it must be a pack rat. Once we were totally in agreement, we spent the rest of the day on strategy.

     Big Bro had a rat trap, a wire and wood thing, like a giant mouse trap. We discussed bait in detail. I suggested a hunk of cheese. He suggested we stick pieces of cat food on the cheese, as this animal had already shown an affinity for that. I tried to convince him that everyone, and everything, just loves cheese, and that a chunk of ripe cheese, alone, would do the trick. After we debated that an hour or so, he gave in. We set the trap right there between the two useless traps, topped with a really nice, ripe, hunk of cheese. Big Bro suggested we must tie that trap down, because if it got caught by a leg or something, it might just drag his only rat trap off. I suggested that it was not needed, because once a pack rat was in that trap, he was going nowhere. But by sundown, he had won out. It was his trap, and his pack rat.

     Big Dan, his son, was there temporarily recovering from some medical issues, and he was not about to be left out. Big Dan allowed as how, in case it didn't get caught, it might walk around that trap a time or two, just inspecting that cheese, and we should sprinkle flour all around on the floor in the whole area, so that we might at least get a look at a track or two, and know something about what we were up against. We discussed the merits and shortcomings of that idea, we each had our say. But, in the end, nobody came up with a good reason why we should not to that, so we did.

     As bed time approached, we were all excited about what the morning would bring as we visited until bedtime.

     Big Dan has led a wild and adventurous life, but he had now found the Lord, and he was anxious to talk about it. Big Dan and I talked more that night at Big Bro’s house than we had ever talked before.

     Big Bro was about to go to bed, and I suggested we might just peek in on the situation now, but Big Bro said no, leave it alone. That animal never stirs before midnight, he said. Now, I didn't really understand how Big Bro knew that, because he was always asleep by 8 o'clock. But I didn't mention that, as I knew that would only trigger another round of debates, and we were all pretty well exhausted from debating all day anyhow.  Big Bro went to bed at 8 o'clock.

     Big Dan and I talked some more. I lived with Big Dan for a time, during the big gas well boom in western Oklahoma. I was working on a gas well one summer, to supplement my teaching pay. Big Dan roared up one day on his Harley, and easily got a job there, when the boss saw how big and strong he was. He made my life there a lot easier. The other Roughnecks stopped pitching chunks of iron off the tower at me, just to see how well I could dodge, once Big Dan was on the scene. And life was sure a lot simpler in that Roughneck town, also, hanging out with Big Dan. He was just a skinny kid then, about 280 pounds or so. Nobody messed with Big Dan, or any of his friends.

     When I headed for bed, I stopped for a moment, turned, and held Big Dan's eye for a moment across the room. “I'm proud of you, Big Dan. You're a good man.” He flashed a smile. “Thanks, Uncle Pat. You've ALWAYS been a good man.” That exchange warmed my heart. I slept well.

      When I got up the next morning, Big Dan had already been up a long time, and drained the coffee pot totally dry, probably for the second or third time, because you can just never tell about Big Dan. He was now long gone, off to see his friends. Big Bro was up too, waiting at his spot at the table while sweet sis-in-law fixed breakfast. “Just go look for yourself, and see if you can pick a track or two out of that mess,” he said. Well, that told me we had been beaten again, but I rushed out there anyway. The cheese was gone, the trap was thrown, and it was pulled to the end of Big Bro's wire. The animal was gone. There was a lot of scratching and clawing marks in the flour, but it was mostly a mess, and using all my woodsman skills, about all I could read from that was, it sure had some sharp claws. I would have loved to have hung around and seen the end game of this mystery played out, but I wanted to look over the old farm today, so, after breakfast, I headed out. I wanted to grab that last sliver of lemon pie as I walked out, but Mom had long ago warned me about grabbing the last bite of anything. I always tell Sweet Sis-in-Law well ahead when I'm coming, and I always show up around meal time, and she always has my favorite waiting, coconut pie. This time she surprised me, and it was lemon pie. I now think my favorite kind of pie is lemon pie.

     As I walked out the door, I could tell Big Bro was already plotting his next move in his mind, and I knew that by now, he was about to pull out all the stops.

     I got the word the next day. Big Bro had, indeed, pulled out all the stops and caught a pack rat, using women's nylons and peanut butter. I'm still a little fuzzy about how this all played out, or I would tell you more. Why didn't I think of that, women's nylons and peanut butter? It all sounds so simple, now.

     But yet the saga continues. The cat food is still getting gone. And now, that pest has really gone to extreme measures, chewing the cover off the wiring to their car’s computer. Big Bro has that look in his eye that I haven’t seen in a long time. That look always scared me to near death when I was a little boy, and Big Bro was already big.  Now, it’s all-out war.