It was midsummer, 2001.  I, my father, and my youngest brother Joseph (who was working with us at the time) embarked upon an estate pickup to West Side Scranton where we were greeted by three, better-than-middle-aged sisters.  Though the youngest of these women is now a fuzzy memory, the middle and the eldest sisters stick out in my mind.

My father introduced my brother and me and then commented that he had another son, Carlo, who was chronologically positioned between me and Joseph.  I don’t remember why, but Carlo had to remain at the gallery.

At hearing this, the middle sister exclaimed, “Oh yeah?  Three sons?  But where is that middle bastard?  I’m a middle bastard, too.  I know what it’s like.”

Right.

Now, in order to remove the contents, we had to carry everything into the kitchen and lug it out the side door, down a long porch, and then descend a set of concrete steps to the street.  It was a sunny summer day, so Joseph and I propped open the kitchen exit and got to work.

It remained open for the first couple of pieces we took out.  Then suddenly, it was closed.  Assuming that the door had swung shut due to a breeze or gravity, we placed something in front of it to keep it ajar.  However, a few more pieces later we found the door shut again and the doorstop we had used pushed aside.  We also saw the eldest sister sitting in the kitchen.

“I’ll open and close the door for you boys,” she said.  “We can’t leave it open.”

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“Tremendous squirrels, ” she said.

“Excuse me?”

“We have tremendous squirrels here,” she said.

She was trying to tell me that there were a tremendous number of squirrels in the neighborhood and that if the door remained open, one or several would more than likely wander into the house.

Yet, the way she had phrased it–”tremendous squirrels”–immediately conjured in my mind images of eight-foot, bushy tale rodents roaming the neighborhood like a gang of street thugs, terrorizing those who live there.  The possibility of a B movie, Attack of the Killer Squirrels, made me laugh.  How many nuts would a tremendous squirrel need to store away for winter?  How would one stop such a giant animal from eating from the bird feeder?  Or from eating the birds?  Could a tremendous squirrel climb a tree?  The comedic prospects are limitless.

To this day, and I imagine for the rest of my life, every time I see a squirrel frolicking in a yard or ascending a tree, I think back on the woman who sat in the kitchen of that estate in West Side Scranton and guarded the property bravely and honorably against the threat of an invasion by tremendous squirrels.  I salute you, Lady Squirrel Stopper, for being so courageous in the face of such peril.

###