By Kent Bernhardt

Is it me, or is Salisbury just infested with squirrels lately?

Maybe I just never really noticed them before, but it seems they’re everywhere. An occasional sighting has turned into watching four or five of them play in my yard and scamper across my roof each morning. If I jump in the car for a grocery store trip, I dodge three or four of them along the way, sometimes unsuccessfully.

I’ve always thought squirrels caught a break, thanks to the fact that God created them with long bushy tails. Take away the bushy tail and we would see them for the rodents they are — little more than glorified rats.

No one writes children’s books about friendly rats. Well actually, you will find a couple. There’s one titled “Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH,” and even one called “A Rat’s Christmas Tale,” a book about the real meaning of Christmas. I may have to read that one to find out what rats have to do with Christmas.

Aside from those, you have pretty slim pickings in the world of rat literature.

But the squirrel, the rodent with the good press agent, is the hero of many a child’s reading material thanks entirely to its cute bushy tail. They’re always friendly with big smiles on their faces, so what child doesn’t love a squirrel.

I can’t imagine a squirrel’s life is an easy one — all that scurrying about, crippling indecision when confronted by approaching vehicles, and all those nuts to gather for the winter. None of us would want to be a squirrel, but in a sense we have a lot in common.

We also scurry about with no real sense or care about where we’re going. We, too, suffer from crippling indecision in traffic, only ours is displayed mostly when approaching traffic circles. And don’t we also work our paws to the bone gathering nuts, or food for our tables?

Yes we do. So are we really that different?

My grandfather hated squirrels stealing the pecans from his pecan tree, and he kept a pellet rifle around as a remedy. He was always shooting at them and missing. They were too crafty and unpredictable.

“Hell’s bells,” he would mutter under his breath. “I’m out of pellets again.”

I don’t really give them a lot of thought, except for the sheer numbers of them I’ve been seeing lately. There’s a part of my brain that suspects they’re planning a takeover in the near future.

If that were to happen, there’s a lot to fear. I don’t like to think about life in The Bury if squirrels called the shots. Imagine dodging little squirrel cars and trying to stay warm in the winter living in a cluster of twigs in a tree.

Makes me shutter.

So I will treat them with respect they deserve and try to avoid making squirrel pancakes out of them on Statesville Boulevard.

After all, their day may be coming.

Kent Bernhardt is a long time local broadcaster, humorist, and host of the Salisbury Symphony’s “Bury Home Companion.”