It was February or March of 1958. I was attending the Navy’s Aviation Electronics School in Millington, Tennessee, a suburb of Memphis. Pat was working in the Accounting Department at the corporate headquarters of Kroger’s Grocery Stores.

It was a weekend and we decided to go across the river to Arkansas and explore a little. We got to the bridge over the Mississippi and the road ramped up, probably to get the bridge high enough to be above flood level. We crossed the river and were on the downhill straight-away that would take us into East Memphis, Arkansas. Way up ahead we could see something hopping up the shoulder toward us. As we got closer we could see that it was a dog! He was hopping on his front legs and was vertical, with his rear legs curled above his body. Apparently, his rear legs were injured and he had to come up with an alternative way to get around.

I don’t remember anything else about that day…only that courageous little dog getting on down the road. Both animals and humans find a way to cope.

Dave Thomas
December 17, 2014

ack in the mid-1960’s I had a man named John Grant working for me as an Assistant Foreman. One Monday morning John came in and handed me his letter of resignation and said he was moving to Colorado to work for his father-in-law. We talked about it for a few minutes and I wished him well. Then, he told me that one problem he hadn’t resolved yet was what to do with the desert tortoise named Sam that he had kept as a pet for several years. John was afraid that the extremely cold winters of Colorado might be too much for Sam. He suggested that I might like to adopt Sam and care for him. It sounded good to me so a few evenings later John brought him over to the house.

The desert tortoise inhabits the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. There are two species, one living east of the Colorado River in Arizona and Mexico and the other living west of the Colorado, basically in the Mojave Desert. They are considered to be endangered and if you run across one in the wild, it’s against the law to touch, bother, or harm them. There is a means for adopting those who have been rescued from unsafe conditions.

The desert tortoises live from 60 to 80 years. Mature male tortoises can be from 12 to 18 inches in length with females being somewhat smaller.

In these little stories I’ve been trying to shed some light on the thought processes of animals but in Sam’s case I’ve got to ‘fess up and tell you that I’m up against the wall. He ate, slept, pooped, and hibernated, and I can’t make any funny stories out of that. We turned him loose in the back yard where like a cow, he grazed and slept. We fed him lettuce every day and he really enjoyed that. For goodies or snacks, he seemed to enjoy things that were red. For instance, in our back yard we had 3 hibiscus bushes that were about 8 feet tall and were always full of blossoms. Two of the bushes were red and the other was white. If you picked a bunch of blossoms and put them in front of him, Sam would eat them all but he ate the red ones first.

Sam’s favorite snack was watermelon. He would eat every bit you gave him and when he was done, he would have red juice all over his jaw and face and he would sit there blinking his eyes with a satisfied look on his face. What a feast!

A desert tortoise hibernates through the winter. As the fall season moves in, temperatures drop and the days become shorter. This tells the desert tortoise it’s time to start looking for a place to hole up for the winter. They get sluggish and don’t move around as much though they may start crawling under things or digging holes. Taking John Grant’s advice, at this time we would pick Sam up and carry him into the house and put him in a dresser drawer. He would sleep there until spring when the days got warmer and longer. Then, we would either arbitrarily take him to the back yard to wake up or wait until we heard him moving around before taking him out. As I recall, Sam spent a couple of years in dresser drawers and a couple of years in a closet.

One day, Sam wasn’t in the yard. I checked every square inch and there were no burrows or holes that would have allowed him to escape. Sam had been turtle-napped! It was a shame. We had all enjoyed seeing him out there in the yard. He was docile and seemed to be content with life as he grazed his way through each day.

Dave Thomas
September 23, 2014

For a short time (1 ½ days) I had a pet porcupine. I was 13, going on 14, when I spent the summer of 1950 in Safford, Arizona with my Grandpa, George Sicks. I had never seen a porcupine and all I knew about them is that when they got mad or scared they threw their quills at you and you ended up looking like a pin cushion. I figured them to be pretty mean animals.

Grandpa sold Allis-Chalmers farm equipment there in eastern Arizona. He spent a lot of time on the road calling on the farmers and ranchers in the area. One day, he said he would be going south to make some calls. I couldn’t go with him because he had hooked me up with a job on one of the big farms in the area. When Grandpa got home that night he told me about his trip. To get to the area where he wanted to make calls he went south out of Safford and after a few miles arrived at the Pinaleno Mountains. As the elevation increased he got up into the pine forest. As he went over the crest of a hill, he almost ran over a porcupine in the road. It was standing beside the body of another porcupine that had been hit by a car or truck.

Grandpa went about his business but when he returned in late afternoon the porcupine was still beside the body as if grieving over the loss of its companion. They may have been involved in a mating ritual or, as we learned later, this may have been a mother and baby as the babies stay with their mothers until they are about 6 months old. Grandpa pulled over, got out of his car, and walked back to the porcupine. It didn’t move. Being afraid that the animal would eventually be hit by a car, Grandpa picked it up and put it in his car and headed for home.

When he got to the house, Grandpa told me what had happened. He had a big cardboard box and some chicken wire and we used them to fashion a pen. We got a bowl of water and some vegetables from the house, put them in the pen, and we were ready for our guest.

Grandpa was good with animals and believed that touching was the best way to establish a bond and begin communicating with them. As he got the porcupine out of the car he began showing me how to stroke its back as he spoke quietly to it.

The quills normally lay flat and needless to say, you should always stroke “with the grain” unless you want to deal with quills sticking out of your hand. We put it in the pen and I spent the rest of the evening sitting beside it and talking to it and stroking it. I didn’t get any reaction at all until I started rubbing the bridge of its nose. Then, it started leaning into it a little. I knew the animal was unhappy and scared so it was gratifying to get any kind of response.

I didn’t have to work the next day so I just hung out with the porcupine. It didn’t eat or drink or move around in the pen. Besides the other trauma in its life it couldn’t get any peace now because some kid was checking on it every five minutes. I talked to Grandpa about the situation when he got home that afternoon. He said that he had been worried about the safety of the porcupine but shouldn’t have interfered. He said he should have left it to Mother Nature to take care of business and we would have to make it right.

The next morning, Grandpa put the porcupine in the car and said he would leave it where he had found it. That evening, he told me that the remains of the other porcupine were still where he had seen them last. He moved the body several yards off the road and then got the other porcupine from the car and placed it beside its former companion. We were both sorry that we couldn’t have done more.

For the record, porcupines don’t throw their quills. They are passive little animals but when forced to defend themselves, turn their back to the aggressor and “bristle”, causing their quills to stand up straight. If the adversary persists and gets too close they whack it with their tail. That’s when the pain comes in.

This is a sad memory but I am grateful for the things I learned.

Dave Thomas
October 21, 2014

When Pat and I were living in Keller, Texas we had one of those free-standing swing sets on our patio. The thing had a canopy over it and was quite comfortable. One day we were out there watching the clouds drift past and watching the birds go about their business when we noticed that a couple of the little green lizards that lived in the back yard were running around on the fireplace chimney and the roses growing next to it. I went in and got my camera and sat back down in the swing to take a few shots. I wasn’t having any luck at getting a good picture so Pat said she wanted to try. I handed her the camera and she immediately got what I consider to be a great nature shot.

When our grandson, David, received the picture he sent a reply saying that he had gone one better and had actually caught a lizard. Here’s the picture he sent.

Dave Thomas
October 17, 2014

When I was in grade school, my great uncle, Dave Peebler, and Aunt Rachel kept a few chickens in their back yard at 124 High Street. The flock included a young rooster they had named “Wild Bill” because he was so feisty. Wild Bill thought he was in charge of the back yard and if he caught you trespassing he would sneak up behind you and beat the devil out of you with his wings. He managed to get all of us more than once. One time he cornered me and beat me until my legs were sore before I could escape. Uncle Dave always thought it was hilarious when one of us got beat up.

One evening, we were having supper with Uncle Dave and Aunt Rachel. We were part-way through the meal when Uncle Dave looked over at me and asked “How do you like that drumstick?” I replied that I thought it was really good. “Well,” he says “That’s old Wild Bill!” I was really taken aback. It had never occurred to me that the chickens in the back yard were anything but pets. Aunt Rachel chimed in and told us that she had been out in the yard, tending her flowers, and that no-good rooster had sneaked up on her and began beating her legs with his wings. She said, “That was the last straw and I grabbed him and wrung his neck!”

There were a couple of lessons to be learned here. The first one might be that “not all critters are destined to be pets.” Another might be that “if you are naughty or disrespectful, there may be dire consequences.”

Dave Thomas
December 19, 2014