Culling of slow squirrels not always bad

Lorraine Sommerfeld

SPECIAL TO THE STAR

Whenever possible, I prefer not to run over things with my car. Especially living things. Especially squirrels, who spend this time of year darting across roads to assemble food for a long winter – food some quicker squirrel will get to eat because the dumb ones end up pasted to the road, tail waving sadly in the wind like a fluffy surrender.

When the boys were quite small, we were going down a side street on the way to school. A bike path crosses the street, and I always slow to a crawl.

A medium-sized dog suddenly ran out from between two parked cars and smucked into my front fender.

With the owner running up, my two sons squealing in horror and another dog walker racing to the scene, I jammed the car into park and jumped out. The owner was apologizing profusely for the dog being off its leash. I was in tears. The other dog walker was assuring me the dog was fine. My sons were jumping out asking if the dog was dead. Later that day, the other dog walker came to the house to let me know the dog was fine, and it wasn't my fault.

All I could think of was, "What if that had been a kid?" Forget the legal code; in the moral code, I don't want a tonne of steel I'm piloting to destroy any life. I thought I was already driving prepared for anything; I learned you can never be prepared for everything, and the boys still refer to this as the time Mom ran over a dog.

When teaching me to drive, my father drilled into my head that you don't slam on the brakes or swerve for squirrels. He repeatedly told me a darting animal isn't worth a human life.

If you haven't been paying attention to what's behind you, slamming on your brakes for no apparent reason can cause someone to plow right into you.

Swerving into oncoming traffic – or even just swerving – can freak out anyone who doesn't see the kilogram of grey fur that is making you manoeuvre.

Of course my father, a gardener, hated squirrels, so I always presumed he was simply training us to take out as many as we could. I still distinctly remember the first time I was in a car that hit a squirrel. My mother was driving my sisters and me, and there was a lot of traffic. I didn't see the squirrel, but I felt the sick "thunk." Mom grimaced and went a little white.

"Was that a ...?" I asked.

"Don't say it," replied Mom.

Of course at dinner that night, Dead Squirrel was a featured guest.

"Mommy hit a squirrel today," one of us said. I swear my father smiled.

"Be quiet. That's not dinner conversation," said my mother.

"It was really gross. It made a gross noise. Do you think it's still there, on the road, all gross?" one of us asked.

"Enough. Eat your dinner. We're not discussing it," she said. I now know she was replaying the moment in her head. It's hard not to.

"Well, how about when you got a speeding ticket? Can we tell Daddy about that?" I asked.

My mother's head shot up. The only thing worse than getting a speeding ticket was getting one as a woman in the late 1960s with your kids in the car.

I'm pretty sure we went back to talking about the squirrel.

Lorraine Sommerfeld's column appears Thursdays on Wheels.ca.

www.lorraineonline.ca