Tales from the Edge 05-27-24

I have come to look at the extinction
of the dinosaurs in a whole new light.

Over the last few years with Global
Warming, or the natural earth cycle, whatever it is, the weather patterns have
been crazy. Snow when there shouldn’t be snow. Rain where there never has been
rain. No rain where there always has been. Golf ball size hail is common and
baseball size is not unheard of in pretty much any weather disturbance.

Let me share this conversation I had
with my Neighbor, a few days back.

“No… It wasn’t raining, it had
finished raining, it was in between the end of raining and drying up. There
were hardly any of those little plop things in the puddles.”

“Plop things,” I asked?

“Yeah, you know where the rain drop
falls in and makes the little circle things that go out and… well they are
sort of like little, tiny waves, rolling across the surface of a tiny little
Ocean….” He got a faraway look in his eyes and fell silent.

“Uh, Bob?” his name is Bob.

“Yeah?”

“You kind of zoned out there,” I told
him. “But I understand the thing about the plop… I think…” he started to
speak. “No, I do. I do understand it completely.”

Bob nodded. “Good… It’s kind of hard
to explain… Did you ever wonder if there’s tiny little life down there… you
know and the mud puddle to them really is an ocean… and.” He looked up,
smiled and cleared his throat. “Well, you know.”

“Uh… sure… Once or twice, I
think… So, uh, you were saying about the hail?”

In between us a raccoon that lived in
the woods behind us lay dead… Presumably dead. I had not checked for a pulse
or attempted mouth to mouth, but it had been hit in the head with a chunk of
hail roughly the size of a hardball while crossing from Bob’s property to mine.
Bob had seen the whole thing, come over and got me away from my typing long
enough to come out and look at the raccoon and the chunks of ice that had
fallen from the sky. I looked up now. Not entirely sure more wouldn’t fall. I
was not a raccoon, but I was still sure a chunk of ice that big could probably
kill me to.

“Yeah… Got me spooked too,” Bob said
and looked up at the sky.

“So…” I asked looking back down.

“Yeah, well… So, I was coming out of
the shed, getting the pots for my spring plantings, sun has to shine
eventually, and here comes Martha (Martha was his pet-name for the Raccoon)
probably thinking I had a treat for her. So, I’m fixing to get the peanuts out
of my pocket, I keep them for her… You know, they was on sale two years ago
at the A&P so I bought three cases of them.” He seemed to lose himself for
a moment.

“Yeah… The A&P does have some good deals,” I
allowed. I was glad it was not me eating three-year-old peanuts.

“Oh yeah. Last week they had Captain
Crunch… She likes that too… I didn’t have any Captain crunch in my…”

Martha farted and Bob jumped back
three feet.

“God!” Bob declared. Nothing else
happened for a few moments and Bob looked up at me. “You suppose?”

“Just a natural thing,” I said. It had
made me jump too though. Not pleasant to think that after you pass, you’ll still
be passing. The thought almost made me laugh which Bob would have taken the
wrong way, so I bit it back and listened as he resumed talking.

He had bent down and picked up a large
hardball sized chunk of ice. There were several close by her, but he fixed on
the one. “So, she’s coming and the rain’s letting up, and, well, did you know
she don’t like the rain? I think most raccoons are like that. They don’t like
the rain. So… Where was I?”

“The rain,” I said reluctantly. It had
been my chance to speed it up by telling him he was telling me about the hail
hitting her in the head and I had blown it.

“Right, the rain… Hmm… Oh,” he
snapped his fingers, “That’s how I know it was done raining. She wouldn’t have
come out otherwise.”

Martha farted again.

Bob looked offended, but neither of us
jumped this time. “You think she’s just gonna keep doing that,” Bob asked?

I shrugged… “Maybe,” I allowed.

“Whoooeee,” Bob said fanning his face.

I was down wind.

Bob shuffled a little sideways. “Must
have been the Captain Crunch.” We both stood silent for a few moments, staring
down at the dead, farting raccoon.

“So,” I said at last.

Bob looked puzzled.

“Uh, the hail…. The accident… Poor
Mable,” I gestured at the dead raccoon.

“Oh… Oh…” Bob said. “Martha…
It’s Martha,” Bob said.

“Sorry, Bob. Martha,” I
repeated.

Bob Nodded. “Well, anyways, dropped
right out of the sky and conked her right in the frigging’ head.” He nodded.

I nodded for him to continue.

“Oh… That’s it. Conked her in the
head. Fell right down… Never said nothing after that. Not even a … a … Well,
what ever a raccoon would say after getting hit with a chunk of ice.”

I nodded. Mister sympathy. Martha
farted again. Bob made a face and shifted a little more sideways.

“I suppose she would have said
something like. Well, if racoons could talk. I know they can’t, I’m just
saying, she might have said something like … ‘Son of a bitch that hurt!’ or ‘My
God that was a big chunk of ice!’ but she never said a word at all. Just bang
in the head and she dropped in her tracks… Just like you see her.” Martha
farted once more as if to punctuate Bob’s words. “Had to be the Captain
Crunch.,” Bob said quietly. “Well, anyhow,” Bob continued un-prompted, “Hail?
Hail the size of a baseball? In Spring? Up here?” Bob was tossing the question
marks around like he had a pocket full of them instead of peanuts.

I nodded. “I’ve never seen it,” I
agreed. And I hadn’t in my fifty plus years of living in upstate New York.

“I been here all my eighty-two years,”
Bob said. “Never seen nothing’ like it… Hail the size of baseballs…”

Martha twitched, farted again and then
raised her head slowly from the ground.

“Son of a bitch,” Bob said.

I muttered something a little more
colorful.

Martha looked over at Bob, then swung
her head around at me, managed to get her feet under her and wobbled a few
steps.

“Son of a bitch,” Bob repeated. I must
confess I repeated a few of those colorful words too.

 

Martha wobbled a few more times, let
loose of one more long high-pitched fart, and then waddled over to Bob. Bob
just stared down at her stupidly for a moment and then reached into his pocket
and came out with a handful of lint covered peanuts. I stood and watched for a few
moments as Bob fed her, but I hate to see old men cry, so I kind of faded into
the background. Besides, I’m pretty sure Bob forgot I was there.

My point is, Global warming, or
whatever it is, is ruining the world. Making it a tough place to live in. I envision
the whole dinosaur extinction as going something like this.

Fred the dinosaur is standing in his
yard staring down at a tiny, dead, little human. His buddy Ralph happens by.

Ralph: “So, what’s up there, Fred? Got
yourself a little meal there?”

Fred looks up and frowns. “No. It was
my little friend,” He turns and points towards the cliffs a short way away.
“Lives over there… Comes out every day or so… Likes those little furry
things with horns?” He looks at Ralph and Ralph nods.

“I think they call them ‘Furry things
with four feet,’” Ralph supplied.

It was Fred’s turn to nod. “Yeah, so,
anyway, I keep one around, you know, they’re easy to catch. And I leave some
for him…”

“And, “ Ralph prompted?

“And, the ice just fell out of the sky
and bashed him in the head…”

“Well, you could eat him,” Ralph said.
“Seems a waste to…”

The human rolled over, farted and
looked up at Fred.

“Son of a bitch,” Fred said. “And you
wanted to eat him.”

“Well… You could still eat him,”
Ralph said.

“You make me sick sometimes,” Fred
said. He shuffled over to the human, carefully helped him to his feet and
steered him towards the pile of meat he had left for him.

“You know, just blue skying it here,
Fred. But let’s suppose this whole weather thing is a … a … A harbinger of
things to come? More bad weather? You know… What, Fred, If it’s the end for
us? As a species!”

Fred strode across the short distance,
flicked his tail and knocked Ralph off his feet. “You are overreacting, Ralph.
Where do you get theses crazy ideas from?”

Ralph picked himself up, glancing over
at the human who seemed to be amused by the whole situation. “Just repeating
what they say. They say maybe our time is through and soon the world will be
left to the humans. Imagine… Us extinct,” Ralph finished.

Fred laughed, a loud roar that caused
the human to shrink back. “Nonsense! Humans take over the world? Where do you
hear these things?”

And… That was probably it right
there. The beginning, same as it is for us. Maybe two million years from now
there will be a couple of cockroaches standing out in their adjoining yards…

“So, Darren, did you see that chunk of
ice that dropped out of the sky?”

        
…………………………………………………………………..

Hey, have a good week! Dell Sweet.

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