Note from Hummy and BillyG;
The animals have been in session for many
months and have needs and chores to do back in their own places. We will
reconvene in a month or two with the proviso that we work on a bridge between
our consciousness and our desire to help humans save the planet from
self-imposed destruction.
Meanwhile, by request, Phil will offer
up some life history.
A Childhood Recalled
“One of my favorite places to be was in the corner of the room
where the ladies were quilting. God, I loved the click of needles on thimbles,
a sound that will always make me think of stories. When I was a boy, stories
were conversation and conversation was stories. For me it was a time of magic.”
Harry Crews
Childhood was a time of wonder
and awe. Someone said 'the remembered events are a scenario designed to
accommodate current feelings'. How does that stack up? In times of
depression and despair I have not been able to remember much of that time
of “look Ma, no hands”. Why should one go back and look again? Who
will it help? Will it help me as I approach the end of the road? I
am very conscious of those who are in their formative years partly because I
have 15 grandchildren. What kind of world will I leave them with?
When I look back I see times of great courage and times of abject
self-loathing.
As a psychiatrist I have
always thought of my triumphs as moments that I have been able to help someone
ease their self-loathing and find grace. While in an Alcoholics
Anonymous meeting I recently said how much I wanted to be like my mother-in-law
rather than my mother because my mother was a whiner and always whined when she
was feeling the slightest physical symptom. But in contrast my mother-in-law
though the bedridden rheumatoid arthritis sufferer she always had a cheerful
way of greeting the day and giving others a brighter outlook on life. How much
time I heard that and even to this day I miss her a great deal because he
brought so much joy into my family.
My background is unusual in
that I grew up in the midst of a number of roving biologists and naturalists.
My father was a roving biologist that Jack Bass captured or mesmerized to use
Dad to develop a laboratory setting where biologists and naturalists could come
and work. I think it was a noble gesture on Jack Bass’s part; and
certainly my father was happy to have full-time employment. Everyone
in Biloxi was happy that Dad had a job with a respectable title, but that is
another story.
Nowadays most people look for a
corporation or an employer they can work for hoping that they can do some of
their own work on the side. But in those days in the early 1930s there was a
great opportunity for biologists but very little pay. The Bass Biological
Laboratory was a boon to biologists and naturalists seeking to learn more about
Florida’s wild life and plant life.
There were many buildings and many
efforts to study biology operating almost haphazardly. However, my father was
determined to make a profit from the laboratory environment. He set
up a cataloging system and collected specimens that were known to be in demand
by colleges and universities around the world. Many snakes and turtles
and other kinds of animals were collected and preserved ready for
distribution.
It was a great place for a
child, like me, to roam around in. I don't know how anyone could have had a
situation any better for a young child. So, I just roamed around the
compound whenever I could and found interesting things and people to talk to.
It was marvelous. There were a dozen enclosures housing turtles, alligators,
snakes and lizards. I had my own zoo full of animals and
people. The air of excitement was all around me. I had my own pet
Indigo snake, Blackie, who won a second prize in the annual Sarasota Pet
Show. I carried him down the main street in Sarasota in 1939 with my
mother carrying a large open cloth sack along the parade path as if (Mother’s
concern) the snake was about to get away, but he clung to my neck with ease.
At the Bass Labs him we all
ate at a long dining table with the cushion on the long bench that must've been
30 feet long. Jack Bass was usually sitting at the head of the table. Often
biologists and naturalist from around the country would come to visit for a
week or two while moving through Florida studying living things found in our
area.
I
remember one morning a biologist from the University of Florida named, Archie
Carr, sat next to me at the table. He was very friendly and had a curious
smile. What captivated me was his first move after sitting down. He placed two
fiddler crabs in his empty plate. The fiddler crabs began scurrying around
trying to get out the edge of the dish but failing to escape. He then picked up
one of the fiddler crabs, looked at me, and then promptly began
chewing the living crab. It was magic to me as he picked up the other fiddler
ate it as well. To top it off he lit a paper napkin and while the napkin was on
fire he popped it in his mouth chewed and swallowed that. I can't think of a
better way to impress a four-year-old.
