Time was, there were critters out there. In the woods, right behind the house, every once and a while, you could see varmints looking out of their world into ours. Not just your average hoot owl or sweet little bunny or two just back from Mr. McGregor’s. You could always see their tracks in the fresh mud and hunters could identify different invaders by their droppings. Mr. Mack McCay, late of Landis, regaled the past Post readers with tales of ye ole “wampus cat” that would make your blood run cold. Thanks to our Mexican neighbors, we now have the Chupacabra to fear. That, and a couple of Godzilla movies would cause your mind to wander and wonder. Is there a future time when creepy crawly swamp things will inherit this ol’ earth and take over our beleaguered cities just like we saw the giant flies, roaches and ants on black and white TV low budget Japanese movies late at night? Why did we believe these cheesy cheap thrills?

Because we knew for sure that snakes were under the bed and we could not get to the bathroom without touching the floor. There is something wrong with people who keep snakes. Too familiar. When did all snakes become poisonous? And something was always lurking in the closet. You could see two eyes and a face but not with the door closed and the lights on but you couldn’t get out of bed to close the door or turn off the light. Outside noises only reinforced the thought that any number of four-legged things that go bump in the night inhabit the world just outside the window. If you saw a writing spider spell your name or he could see your teeth, you would die.

Who decided which phylum, genus, and species was good or which would “get you”? Raccoons with masks were always questionable. Those humanlike opposing thumbs kinda got to you, like people on the take. The animal kingdom was full of harmless members, like dragonflies, doodle bugs (ant lions) and blue-tailed skinks. Ever see one, anymore? But, the first sighting of a praying mantis and it was an omen of a return to prehistoric times and unpredicted doom. The walking stick and rhinoceros beetle were just as intimidating.

Then you have your little rats with fuzzy tails that some little old retired Yankee ladies take on as pets, describing their every move as if it was their very own grandchild taking its first step. Baby-faced squirrels all grown up to be a pest to someone. Gordon H. over in the “club” trapped them and then switched traps with his neighbors on his morning walk. Then there was the guy who spray-painted their tails and sure enough they came back after taking them for a “ride” in the country.

Ground hogs are a recent addition to our town sewers and they have never been told not to eat everything in their sight, except bait in a tray. Don’t expect Animal Control to give you anything but a lecture on how they are protected by the N.C. Wildlife laws. Have they ever seen how they can clear cut $40 world of sunflower sprouts like food choppers? In one night without so much as a thank you?

The food chain may be the answer. “There was an old woman who swallowed a spider to catch the fly that wriggled and giggled and tickled inside her…” Who decided what was edible? As Ben Franklin said, “Brave was the man who ate the first oyster.” We ate squirrels without warbles, nail their hind legs to a board and “skin-em.” Parboiled, rolled in flour, fried in lard; tastes like chicken and it’s free except for a little buckshot. Possums, fattened up, roasted with potatoes and turnips to take the fat out. Yum. We, like homeless critters on the loose, looking for a scrap of food, a drop of water, or a dry place are no different. With all the Hurricane Harvey water you would think we would never need a plastic bottle of water for our own survival.

Consider Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man. “With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated, and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of everyone to the last moment. No one who has attended the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race, but except in the case of man himself, hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.”

So next time you walk on a dark path and you hear a rustle in the leaves, remember it’s just another of God’s creatures in high or low places looking at you for more than a handout. They know more than you think.

Where have all the critters gone, long time passing? Who will ever miss them? When will we ever learn? We don’t need them anymore? Where have all the soldiers gone, long time ago? We don’t want their monuments anymore? Who will remember their names?

Clyde, who has dropped his last name, is a Salisbury artist.