Squirrelopolis

This year, windows line one wall from top to bottom of my assigned classroom, allowing a view of a paved walk and grass and trees and rose garden beyond.  At the end of the drive is an immense bulwark of an oak, whose acorns feed and fill the bank accounts of the grey squirrels residing in this part the city.  What happens is that the pavement has become a squirrel runway, with busyness of paws running back and forth, gathering food for winter; this high-tailed operation goes right past my third grade.

You couldn't tell, and I still can't, if there were six squirrels or only one industrious agitation toodling along the windowed way in that curious undulation that makes them look less like rats.  They could care less about being watched, the audience was subpar by squirrel standards, a nonentity of legs from a gathering nuts point of view which originated at the base of the glassed wall.  That is, until I changed the equation by adding a variable.  Enter the store-bought, English walnut, in shell.

I had purchased a bag of walnuts for an activity, until I realized that most of the gluing could only be accomplished with a hot glue gun meaning that I would be the one putting these walnut-bodied turkeys together myself, and where's the fun in that?  Makes no sense, times twenty-five.  So this bag of nuts stayed in the drawer, supplementing my apple for lunch with one or two, smashed open with the heavier business end of a stapler.  I love nuts of all kinds, but a fresh walnut has history that goes back to the Druids.  I get all Stonehedgey when cracking them, so watch it.  Filberts put me in a Hansel and Gretel European fairy tale, and pecans bring up Truman Capote's "A Christmas Memory" and I am his elderly cousin, dragging young Truman to the woods to gather papershelled pecans for the annual fruitcake bake off.

I miss the small, Turkish pistachios I grew up with, their flavor far, far superior to the fat, bland bastards  now grown in California.  But any pistachio in a storm, y'know.  You have the dichotomous spectrum of the push-you-towards-insanity cracking necessary to open a black walnut, contrasted with the delicate operation of getting through a hickory nut without pulverizing the nutmeat into a paste imbedded with sharp shards of shell.  A croquet mallet works best, and you get the hang of a just right Wham.

Cashews, brazil nuts, and almonds each have a story; this is my Brazil nut tale: when I was a kid, I was enamored of magic but not dexterous enough for sleight of hand, so I investigated magic tricks dependent upon stage props.  A solitary book existed at the local library, seemingly aimed at boys and dreamed up by a sodden this'll-work-if-you-practice sadist.  The trick?  Take a bite out of a burning candle, amaze your audience.  Whoa, if I accomplished this bit of chicanery, I would be well on my way to becoming a Master of the Occult.  Let's get going!

The directions were to first carve a banana into the shape of a candle; never mind that the thing was slippery as hell, glistened with banana oog, and would turn brown before the end of the trick, thus becoming The Amazing Color-Change Smell You Candle.  Okay, I got that part, I am pretty quick with my hands at doing finicky stuff.  The next instruction, printed on real paper with ink in a real book, said to get a Brazil nut, shave off the brown skin, and carve it into the shape of a wick.  The young student was to insert this piece of disguised nut into one end of the candle banana, and Light The Damn Thing with real fire.  This would work, according to the dipsomaniac author, because a Brazil nut contains enough oil to stay lit just long enough for the poor young sap trying this mess to freaking Bite the Lit End Off and swallow.  I am guessing that the publishing house had this Fun To Do Magic For Boys book edited by a German.

There was a drawing of a boy in a cape and top hat, flourishing the Ha! You Thought This Was a Real Candle in one outstretched hand while the other arm gestured mysteriously, but less so than a real Druid. I lit the Brazil nut.  It went out.  I relit the Brazil nut.  It went out.  Apparently I had a dud nut with little oil left.  I had formed more than one nut wick in case of interruption or singular failure, and replaced the toasted one with a fresh load.  By this time the odor of burnt nut with smoke was swirling downwards from my room into the rest of the house.  I heard my father bark, "Dorothy, whaddaya burnin' out there?" yet I went ahead, it was now or never, the preparation of carving fruit and nuts was not going quietly into the desolate Saturday afternoon.  The second wick flamed, blackened, and died.  The banana flopped over, broken in two from less than magical handling, and the end of the hot nut wick hit my hand.  Yeeowch.  What the hell was I thinking?  I looked at the china plate now holding an unattractive fruit salad, and thought, who the hell would tell a kid to bite a lit banana?  Mom knew me well, I heard her footsteps coming up the stairs.  I told her it was a science experiment, she told me to take the matches outside before the house caught fire.

In all fairness, there was a warning in the book.  Bite the banana quickly, closing the mouth to cut off oxygen to the flame; this must be done correctly or you may burn yourself; this trick has been accomplished many times onstage using the Oriental Breathing Technique (not inhaling while closing your mouth so you don't set your tonsils or esophagus on fire).  There was a cutaway diagram of a boy's mouth, showing position of the tongue and the broken off, extinguished but still smoldering Brazil nut inside.  Amaze your friends with your stupidity, and you will provide them with plenty of story material.  Being brought up by Depression parents, I ate the remains of fruit and burnt nut, and had one of my first revelations that even a book from the sanctified library can be concocted by fools.  But remember, this was the era when a sample of real uranium was included in Geiger counter play sets.  For Boys.  It's a wonder we had any boys left after the fifties.

It was this shared love of nuts which began my leaving a walnut out to see if the squirrel would be interested.  I wanted the audience to appreciate caring for our wild friends.  They thought it was a hoot, and warned me about rabies.  But each day, we now have a squirrel visitor coming up to the window and looking in, paws on sill, nose to glass.  He waits for a walnut, the emblem of squirrel riches.  The group watches the ritual of him turning the nut round and round until the right grip is found to carry it off in its mouth; taking a new interest in squirrels, they wish to name it.  I stress that it is still a wild animal, regardless of cute and little, and would rip their noses off if it thought a pine nut was up in their sinus cavities.  But I like their caring, their curiosity, and their new found interest in this urban science project.  I have to buy walnuts this weekend.

The snowstorm that wasn't has passed by, granting the critters that struggle to live outside a reprieve.  How hard must it be to find enough food to keep a metabolism going that maintains body temperature,  we wouldn't last a whole day outside in our skins.  The animals that stay have their tricks, including semi-hibernation for smaller mammals, or restricting blood flow so that tiny bird legs don't freeze.
They may sleep in bundles during the coldest weather, piles of squirrel entwined in a leaf nest that they won't leave for days, but dispersing once the siege is over.

Sleep squirrel, and remember where you buried your store for the dark days of winter.  I stir my soup, saving some aside for future suppers: squash, mushroom, cauliflower, beef barley, chicken rivel.  It is good knowing there is something put away for a thoughtful, cold day.  Sleep deep, relax into the old rhythms before centuries were ever thought of, dream of life going on, time non-existent.  Good night.