A friend of mine just noted in Facebook that he’d had to catch a bat that had gotten into his house. He reminded me of a similar experience I had at my dad’s house in Montana in my late teens. A bat got into the living room and was flying around. Finally we somehow threw a towel over it, and took it outside.
That reminded me of a time when I was a little kid in Montana, and I came across what was probably a dying bat. I hung out with him for several hours, I think perhaps feeding him something. And I recall a similar experience with some kind of mouse. I remember I made a little bed for him out of moss, and gave him some cheese. When I came out the next morning, he was gone.
What sort of baffles me about this is that my dad was letting me play with potentially rabid or diseased dying animals.
But I’m also struck by my total lack of the heebie-jeebies during those situations. Nowadays, if I came across a dying bat, I might be fascinating, but I would also be wary.
I used to catch snakes all the time too.
Kids don’t get “The Heebie Jeebies”. That’s what makes them AWESOME. Unfortunately, that is also why they occasionally die.
But Kids are naturally drawn to Animals. Animals like Alligators and Sharks often use this to their advantage.
Actually, I still catch snakes when given the opportunity.
I never liked snakes. One showed up in our backyard and our Neighbor Mister Emil killed it with a shovel and then artistically draped it on the fence so the cats could admire his shovel work. That really bothered me. I told my Grandma to tell him to get that snake off our fence. She said “Them cats will get it off the fence! You wait!”. My Grandma knew things.