GOOD MORNING, FRIENDS

A REMEMBERAMBLE FOR OCTOBER 03, 2025

Another week has squeaked by us, and it is Friday once more. I wanted to speak of something that I have noticed for a while, and that is the seemingly dramatic decrease in our small animal populations. I base my note of what seems to me as a substantial decrease, on how few of some of these animals I see recently or the number of roadkill incidents. This of course anecdotal, not based on any science, but anecdotal evidence can be a reliable method to make accurate opinions. Years ago, it was common to see rabbits, flushing them from under cover was common, as was seeing them at night while driving.

Rabbits as roadkill were numerous and constituted a large percentage of it. Raccoons and opossums seem to have suffered drastic declines in numbers, based on my observations of them while driving at night, or as roadkill. I haven't noted a drop in cat squirrel numbers, but it seems to me that fox squirrel numbers have dropped, following a positive upswing in their numbers for several decades. I might be wrong about these suppositions, and you may have observed different situations regarding small animal populations in your area. On the topic of rabbits, I will note that my daddy would not eat cottontail rabbits.

It was because of tularemia (rabbit fever), and its rate of fatalities. I do not eat them either, but I do like eating those "fluffy white-delicious" rabbits, a term I coined to tease my wife. Okay, moving on, I am going to relate a true story from when I was four years old, in 1962. It was the height of the cold war, and the threat of nuclear was real, with the Cuban Missile Crises occurring that year, and the draping of the iron curtain, dividing Europe, as well as tensions with China over Taiwan. You might think this topic is about the cold war dangers, and you may be wondering how this relates to Georgia and me here on my Rememberamble.

Hang on, it is about to go in a direction that you did not see coming, and makes it a pertinent topic. With the cold war, came fear, fear of a massive nuclear holocaust, as a result of those fears, bomb shelters began to gain popularity. I was the baby, and the only one of us kids not yet in school, so most of the time if my siblings were at school, mama and daddy would take me with them if they went anywhere. One day mama said daddy was going to pick us up later in that morning and we were going to look at a house for sale that had a bomb shelter.

It sounded like fun to me, so I was eager for daddy to come take us to see it. He did, Daddy had the key to it, so we went inside, I was hoping they would buy it, but this was the first time they had indicated that we might move to a better house. Looking back, I should have wondered why mama and daddy barely looked at the house, in fact they did not go any further than the kitchen. For a couple interested in possible buying a house, it held no interest for them. However, they were very interested in the bomb shelter. Daddy opened a door in the kitchen that led down a set of stairs, to the bomb shelter.

I proceeded to go down the stairs with them, but daddy told me I had to stay up there by myself, because the stairs were steep and I might fall down them. That was a crushing disappointment, because I wanted to see it too, and was scared to be left alone in that strange house. Well, they were down there for quite a long time, and I yelled in my scared little four year old voice asking if I could come down there, they said no, "DO NOT COME DOWN HERE." I was scared and starting to cry. I had no idea that it took two people that long to look at a bomb shelter. It seemed they had been down there an awfully long time.

If you had known my daddy, you would understand why we even came there to see (not see) the house, and why they were down there for so long. Years later, that day in the house with the bomb shelter popped into my head, and suddenly my face turned crimson red, as it finally dawned on me what was really going on that day. I felt like an imbecile, the house was not for sale, they had no desire to buy a new home, it belonged to one of daddy's buddies, had just been built and they had yet to move in, and with a wink and a nod, he loaned the door key to him.

Yessir, they "did it," in a bomb shelter while four year old me, blubbered trying to tell them to come get me or come back up. It was hilarious to me later, much later. I hope you have a good day, and we thank you for dropping in. Remember, we have asked all who will, to mail me and the boyz a birthday card before October 31, when babee Conway, lil Merle, & me celebrate our shared birthday. God bless.

NUMBERS 6: 24-26 KJV

we boyz three, babee conway, lil merle, & me