And Now, Here's Something I Hope You'll Really Like

Things are getting a bit too squirrely around where I live, and not in a cool, retro Jet-Age-aerial-ace-Rocket-J.-Squirrel kind of way. No, I’m talking more of a crawl-up-into-my-car-and-chew-holes-into-the-fuel-line kind of way – which I’ll get to momentarily.
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First, who is Rocket “Rocky” J. Squirrel, you ask?  “Rocky” was the best friend and ally of Bullwinkle J. Moose in the animated television series “The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show” (1959-1964). 

By the way, I was surprised that Rocky was NOT listed on Wikipedia’s inventory of “Squirrels in popular culture,” nor was he included on their “Squirrels in culture” list.  I did finally find him on a list of “Fictional Squirrels,” which, by the way, does not include Beatrix Potter’s Squirrel Nutkin or Timmy Tiptoes.

Now back to reality and the crawl-up-into-my-car-and-chew-holes-into-the-fuel-line kind of non-fictional squirrels (my car, incidentally, is still in the shop obtaining the necessary repairs).  Just the other day, prior to the damage to my car’s fuel line, my wife and I were sitting on our patio, and there seemed to be a literal army of squirrels scurrying and scampering amongst the skog (Swedish for forest) behind our house.  I commented on the fact that there seemed to be more squirrels this year than ever before.  My wife promptly Googled info on her phone regarding squirrel populations and discovered that higher numbers of squirrels closely follow the cycles of tree seed and nut production.

At one point, a squirrel tore to the top of a pine and I said something like, “He’s sure in a hurry to get to his drey.”

“His what?” my wife asked.
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“His drey,” I said. “His nest.  A drey is a squirrel’s nest.”

“Well, that’s a crossword puzzle word if I’ve ever heard one,” she said (I complete a crossword puzzle daily).  “I just call it a squirrel nest.”

She’d not heard the word “drey” before, and that made me wonder two things.  One, did I, in fact, learn the term from completing crossword puzzles?  Very possibly yes.  And two, did Emily Dickinson ever use the word “drey” in any of her poems?  The term sure sounds Dickinson-esque, no?

I checked for “drey” at the Dickinson online archive, and no, she never used the word “drey” in any of her poems.  However, she did use the word “squirrel” in fifteen different poems.

​Below:  Dickinson's "squirrel" poems.

In the introduction to her book Dickinson, Selected Poems and Commentaries, Helen Vendler briefly touched on the poem “‘Nature’ is what we see”:
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“She comes by stealth upon her reader, beginning a list of common things and then pitching it into an unnerving other.  Her bland summary of things seen in nature, for instance, is at first an anodyne one:
              “Nature” is what We see –
              The Hill – the Afternoon –
              Squirrel –
 
And just when we are becoming lulled by this conventional list, what do we encounter following Dickinson’s genial “Squirrel”?  “Eclipse.”  Pure darkness.”

Vendler discussed surprises in images from other poems as well and noted that “Dickinson’s nature poetry alternated disturbingly between tenderness and violence, and is almost always a vehicle for an observance of human life:  ‘Nature, like Us is sometimes caught / Without her Diadem.”

Vendler concluded her introductory comments with this:

“The more we read this poet, the more she fills up our atmosphere – natural, intellectual, moral – with her abstractions crossed with her images…. In entering Dickinson’s poems through both their sentiments and their strategies, we become bearers of her ‘Slant of light,’ of that ‘internal difference / Where the meanings are.”

So back to that rascally rodent that gnawed through my Honda Accord’s gas line. What could be the meaning of that? 

Someone posted on Threads the other day that generic idea that everything in life happens for a purpose as part of a master plan to make us stronger.  Really?  A bushy-tailed forest rat chewed up a hose to my car’s gas tank, and this is part of a big-picture blueprint for my life?  Kelly Clarkson sang, “What doesn't kill you makes you stronger” – and in this case, it’s going to make me poorer too!  I’m waiting to hear the estimate from my mechanic. 

As Rocky J. Squirrel used to say, "Hokey Smoke!"

BONUS SQUIRREL INFO:

Did you happen to notice on the "Squirrels in Culture" list shown above that Wikipedia also has a page entitled "Squirrels on college campuses."  LOL!

The page, HERE, includes a "List of schools with noted squirrel populations."  

The pic at the right from that Wikipedia page made me laugh!