Man vs Possum: Survival of the Fittest!

"Possum: The Most Cunning of Marsupials"

On a cold winter's night back in January, just as I had lathered my face and head and began stropping my straight razor to perform ma toilette de la soirée, I heard a shriek come from another room. I stuck my head outside the master bath and asked "Hun, what happened?" My gal ran into the bedroom, clutched a pillow to her chest and blurted "I just went into the garage, and there it was; staring at me with its beady little eyes!" Her referring to whatever she encountered as an "it" pretty much eliminated a person. My mind raced; Gator?, Copperhead?!, Alien?!! (having been abducted and probed in the past, I could understand her fear). "What looked at you with beady eyes?!" "A POSSUM!!", was her stuttered response.

I looked at her, uncomprehending, for a couple of seconds. "Possum? The animal whose sole form of defense is to fall temporarily unconscious, hoping that a potential attacker leaves it alone... A Possum?!" "They're a Rodent!" "Well hon, they're technically a marsupial" One of "those" looks quickly told me that I hadn't gained any points for my acumen in taxonomy, and I was rapidly digging myself into a hole. Granted, the nature of the crevasse I couldn't fully fathom, but this guy can sense a hole when he's digging one. "Well, be the man! Go out there and get rid of it, I don't care how you do it." "Did you at least open the garage door, so it had a chance to take it on the lam?" "I didn't have enough time. God only knows what it might have done if I had walked passed it to hit the door switch." "Um...keeled onto its side and emitted a stink?"

I accepted the flashlight from her, ignoring the targeting lasers that once were her pupils, and walked into the black of my garage; a 16 x 20 room that was filled with more boxes than a Somali Warlord's last take from a UN food relief mission.

Folks, it's about here that I have let you in that I am from the Sonora Desert. While knowing some facts about possums, I have never claimed to be "Dog: The Possum Hunter", nor am I up to speed on the ways of the wily marsupial. Truth be told, I felt a bit like a backwoods Alvie Singer, trying to lure Annie Hall's runaway lobster out from behind the fridge, by placing carafes of warm butter out as bait.

Logic dictated a couple of opening moves; this most cunning and opportunist of marsupials north of the Rio Grande (ok, the only North American marsupial) needed egress from the garage and there were only two points for escape; through the door that I had just closed into my kitchen and the garage. Remembrance of the aforementioned pupil lasers tipped the scale away from what I would have personally considered a fine practical joke, and I opened the garage door.

A five minute flashlight sweep of the interior, conducted with a stealth of a ninja. Well, a 225lb ninja wearing flip-flops, exercise shorts, total head and face lather (that had long since dried into an obscene form of mime makeup) and a fine pelt of goose bumps from a temp in the high 30's... revealed nothing. In retrospect, the next step of calling out "Here, possum, possum, possum" and then threatening "You'd better listen to me, if you know what's good for ya", probably had little effect. I wasn't dealing with either a critter that had been domesticated for thousands of years, nor a small Brooklyn shop owner. For a brief moment, I considered firing up my Harley Ultra and revving the bejeezus out of the engine, thinking the 116db echoing in the small room would drive it out. What would have happened, of course, is that the critter would have fainted, probably right under her car, lying dormant until the next morning when she went to get groceries.
Eventually, a sense of the ridiculous fused with advancing hypothermia, and I did what any sensible man would do. I walked right in and happily reported that not only did the Kaiser Soze of possums take flight, but he assured me that the possum mafia now "owed me one". Neither of us had cause to go into the garage for a couple of days after , but that didn't stop me from practicing a look of shock and a stammered "This one clearly understands black-ops tradecraft, trained by the SVR no doubt, and doubled back on me! Vladimir Putin will hear of this!!"
Possums...Christ!

Bear: The Possum Hunter

Of Pocket Watches and Memories

It's late. That time of night where I get a little too sentimental for my own good, you know how it is. I'm holding in my hand a pocket watch that I picked up today from my local watch repair shop, where I left it for a couple of weeks to get cleaned, oiled, etc. The repair guy is "Toby", a great guy that I've known for years. Toby hasn't been able to walk since birth and gets around in a wheel chair. What he lacks in the 40 yard dash, he more than makes up for in his boundless optimism and sardonic wit. The fact that he's the best watch man in town, is just a bonus. He handed me the watch and started going over the litany of things he did for the watch while in his custody, but I wasn't listening...my mind was miles and years away.

This watch was a circa late 1890's Hamilton Rail Road watch. Gold plated, not gold. It kept so-so time despite the best care imaginable. Somehow this watch had become a family treasure. My Great Grandfather gave it to my Grandfather on his death bed, and my Gramps did the same with my dad on his. This little ritual had earned the watch the moniker "the Grim Reaper" among the females of the clan. I wasn't thinking of any of this.

I was thinking of the time that I went down to visit my Dad in a hospice in Tucson. For weeks I had been sure that the experimental radiation treatments that he had receiving would halt the progress of his pancreatic cancer. Entering his bedroom, I knew instantly that, if anything, the "treatment" had hastened his demise. I saw the strapping guy that carried me when I got tired as a child, sitting on the edge of his bed, weighing 120 lbs. The eyes that once seemed to embody one of the most formidable intellects that I had ever known, looked out at me from a jaundiced death's head. We made small talk "Yeah, you're right. If those dammed Phoenix Suns don't pay the money for a big man at center, they'll never go all the way..." I maintained a jovial attitude, despite my stomach feeling like I had just hit the down button on a high rise elevator, and my heart pounding in my ears. The pounding got worse when I saw him gesture to my Mom, who then pulled out "THE watch". This was the moment of truth. It was all I could do to act surprised, and gush about how much I always wanted that ancient Hamilton.

While staring at this dammed thing, out of the corner of my eye, I saw my Dad nudge my Mom and point to me, obviously glad that I so "loved" the watch, and it was now safely in the hands of his sole male heir. It was all I could do not to curse and heave the heirloom out the window in an effort to bargain a few more days for my Dad. The dammed watch was all but burning a hole in my hand...

There must be a lot of wisdom in our family traditions. As the years since my Father's death have gone by, I have grown to love that watch. When I hold it I get a sense of continuity with the past that I would have not known otherwise. Much the same as when I smoke my Gramps pipe on nights like tonight, typing my ramblings to strangers who couldn't give a shit less.

James 'Bart' Graves, R.I.P.

Toby said "Well?". Woken from my reverie, I asked him to repeat the question. "I asked 'why do you bother with this thing, I mean you've got an 18k/titanium Omega 300 Chrono on your wrist, why screw with this?'" I just grinned at him "It's a Family thing, Toby, see ya next year".

R. 'Bear' Graves