....and woke up with the TV yapping about the latest news overload of real or created crisis, with prognostications by a carefully-groomed talking head trying hard to convince us he knows the difference between an ass and an elbow....
"All the world's a stage, and we but actors in a play"..... And absolutely everybody wants into the act! The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. But would I buy a used car from any of those bastards? Not if they kissed my ass until I barked like a fox!
Have I ever heard a fox bark? Yes! And it didn't sound anything like a bark. More like the calling of some nice little bird, but low in the bushes beside the road, coming closer and closer.
But I'd better start at the beginning, shouldn't I? Once upon a time, in a place far away, about fifty-one years ago, my buddy Eddie and I were on our way from our area control station to another remotely-controlled plant downriver, along a narrow and bumpy gravel road beside a wood-pole transmission line carrying the power line from that and another station down the river. The sides
of the road next to the power line right-of-way were overgrown with berry bushes. Out of the brambles and berry bushes on that side of the road there suddenly appeared the cutest little red fox pup I ever saw.
The little fox was only a few inches long, with a bushy little tail about the same
length as its body. The kind of little creature you just want to pick up and cuddle. My buddy, driving the old Jeep pick-up truck, said, "There must be a den nearby." I replied, "And I'd just love to catch one of those cute little guys." Eddie said, "Hah! You can't run fast enough!" To which I replied, "I'll bet you a case of beer I can!" And Eddie said, "You're on! How do you plan on doing this?"
We agreed that after we'd been to the remote station, and finished our daily checks on it, that on the way back, when we got near that spot where the little foxes were, he would slow down the old Jeep, but not stop it, and I would jump out on the fly, with a running start, so to speak, and take off after the nearest little fox. We did all that, and as I hit the road running, the little fox took off into the bushes toward the more distant parts of the right-of-way under the power line. I was really surprised at how fast it could run. I thought this was going to be a 'piece of cake' and my case of beer was assured, but it was turning into a
real race, and the little fox had the advantage, because it was on familiar ground, while I wasn't.
We went in and out of patches of thorny bushes, and back and forth across that right-of-way about three times, until finally the little guy was getting short of breath (me too!) and it stumbled just a little while getting over a broken branch.
I figured it was now or never, so I made a flying dive to grab it, and as I landed next to it, I pinned it to the ground with my thumb and forefinger over the back of its little neck, because I didn't want to hurt it, but I didn't want to lose it either.
While I had it pinned down like that, it turned its head and its needle-sharp little teeth chomped repeatedly down along my finger. I lifted it up, and then got up myself, and carried it over to the old Jeep pick-up, which Eddy had stopped nearby, to watch the show. He said, "Damn! You really did it! Good on you!"
I sat the little guy down in the empty box of the old truck, and it was really winded. It just sat there breathing deeply for a couple of minutes, while I looked at my chomped-on finger, now bleeding.
Eddie said, "Looks like you have a problem. You've heard of Rabies, haven't you?" I said, "Yes, I saw a dog with it when I was a kid, but you can't tell me that a little guy this small that can run that fast isn't in the very best of health."
But Eddie managed to convince me I should make sure I was OK. And that's how I heard a fox barking one time. I called the nearest Medical Officer of Health, told him what happened, and he said "You've got two choices: you can come into town which means a two-hour drive every day for a series of painful shots in your belly, or you can keep an eye on your foxes until you're satisfied that they are really quite healthy, in which case you don't have a problem."
I said, "I think they're OK, so I'm choosing your second option, and thank you."
I bought cases of canned fish-flavored catfood, and every day after work I'd drive down the road to the foxes location, and I'd open a can of that smelly catfood, hold it up in the breeze for a few minutes, until the little guys got a good whiff of it and came out of the bushes, and then I'd empty the can on a
nearby flat rock, back off a few feet, and watch them have supper. And one evening while I'm doing that, Mother Fox came looking for her kids, and she was making soft little chirping noises like a bird, as she came out of the bushes on the opposite side of the road, and spotted me. She disappeared again quickly, but the little guys kept right on enjoying supper. They never did get bold enough to eat from my hand, but they would let me within ten or fifteen feet, and those
little foxes and I had a really neat relationship that summer.
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