Back To Bats

I'm not sure I knew it at the time, but I was a lucky kid, the product of two older, mismatched, idiosyncratic parents.  (Ohmigosh, the coyotes are howling and yipping down on the road before dawn!  I haven't heard them in ages.)  I don't know if one or the other was the instigator or if they had mutual wanderlust, but we were always going on road trips.  Consequently I got to see a lot of the United States by road and rail.  This reverie came to me last evening as GB and I were trying to catch a puff of breeze on the porch and I was watching bats.  I got to wondering why these little (and some species not so little) creatures fascinate me so.

It probably began on one of our trips when we either ended up or stopped at Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico in the late 1940s.  I honestly don't remember if we actually went into the caves.  If we did, it would have been over my father's objections and at a time before there was electricity in the caverns.  My mother would have been the driving force for adventure if we did.  What I do remember was watching a black tornado of thousands and thousands of bats come boiling out of the caverns to go hunting at sundown...awesome and unforgettable!  That sight has stayed with me all these years.

The closest I've ever been to a living bat was when Steve and I would go over to the now defunct Marine World/Africa U.S.A. in Vallejo.  We'd go in the winter when there were no crowds, but many of the animals still needed to be walked and socialized.  That's where I met Burma, a large, cinnamon-colored fruit bat with black leather wings and big black eyes.  Regardless of the other attractions in the park, it was only a good outing for me if I got to see Burma.  Yup, I like bats.

Helper Dude drives his mower like he drives his motor bikes, full throttle.  He whizzed around this place like, as my dad would say, a cat with turpentine under its tail, and he was done in no time.  The property looks grand, even along the driveway.  Looking good is one thing, lessening the fire danger is another, more important aspect of cutting down all that drying star thistle.  As always, Dude earned my gratitude.

A trip to the store notwithstanding, it was a good day.