Bubba the Squirrel Trainer

Bubba The Squirrel Trainer

 Morning coffee conversations with my redneck friend Bubba give me a lot of things to think about.  I like to share these stories and observations on occasion.

Bubba comes to my “office” for coffee about three mornings a week. He usually shows up at 7:45.  I had told him that 7 until 8:30 in the morning is my quiet time that I use for writing and ciphering and such as that, but he just keeps on coming.  One day, I decided to write down some of the things he was telling me in order to make up for the interruption.  Bubba doesn’t seem to mind if I am typing while he talks.

Today, Bubba was all excited about training squirrels. He said he was going to make a bunch of money.

I said, “Bubba, you can’t train a squirrel.”

Bubba bowed up and said, “Yeah, hell you kin.  I done seen it.”

Then he told me about it.
Bubba said, “I got on my Harley and went looking for ol’ Randy who used to be a old fishing buddy of mine.  That sumbitch didn’t ever want to do anything but fish all his life.  He was a self employed heating and air man and he made pretty good at it, too. I been looking for him for a while since he disappeared, but this time I had a lead on him and I found him.

”I pulled up to this pretty nice house-maybe about 1400 square feet that was nestled up to lake Weiss.  I walked around the side and there was old Randy sitting on the dock fishing.  I asked him where the hell he’d been and he told me that he was retarred.  He said he figured out a long time ago that if he kept his needs simple, he could retire when he was 54 and not do nothing but fish.

“So he spent a couple of years building his house – said he only had $30,000 in it – he did all the work himself – and that was one really nice house – and he sold his business and most of his assets and retarred to the lake to fish.
He fishes every day, rain or shine, cold or hot.

”After we talked a few minutes, we went to sit on the porch and Randy made some coffee.  We sipped and talked about old times for a while, and then I seen the squirrel.

”I told Randy that was the fattest squirrel I ever seen and he said: ’You ain’t seen a fat squirrel yet’ and he knocked on the porch rail like you would knock on a door.  All of a sudden the tree in front of us was filled with fat squirrels like you ain’t never seen.

”Randy knocked on the railing again and stretched out his arm, palm up like this (Bubba showed me).  He reached into a can and set a peanut on the inside of his elbow right here.  Then he tapped his forearm lightly and said, ‘c’mon Homer.’

”This time, what had to be the fattest squirrel in the world jumped out of the tree onto the porch rail.  Randy tapped his forearm gently again. ‘C’mon Homer’.  The squirrel hesitated for a moment and then ran up Randy’s arm, sat on his forearm, grabbed the peanut and sat up to eat it.  When he finished, he looked up at Randy as if to say ‘thank you’ and turned and
slowly walked away.

”I said damn, Randy, how many of them squirrels do you have?  He said, ‘fourteen and. Homer’s the oldest.  He’s my buddy’.

”I had noticed that the top of Homer’s head was all scratched up and bloody.
I asked Randy about it.

Randy said, ‘Well, ole Homer is constantly sticking his head into them squirrel nests trying to get familiar with some female and nine times out of ten she don’t want him to and she scratches him up pretty bad’.

”I said, Randy, why don’t you take Homer to the vet and get him fixed so
that he won’t get scratched to death?

”Randy done got all farred up.  He said, ‘You talking about Homer? Homer’s been my buddy for eight years.  I just couldn’t bring myself to do that to Homer.  I don’t even want to think about it. There’s always that one time out of ten.  Homer must think that’s pretty good odds.’

Then he started talking about fishing again.”

Bubba took a sip of coffee and looked at me as if to say, “I told you so.”He went over to the sink and rinsed out his cup.

“I’ve got to go get busy at my new job”

I looked at Bubba kind of funny, “You got a new job”?

Bubba said, “Yeah, I’m going to be a professional squirrel trainer.  I got to go set on the porch and get started.  Time’s awastin’”.

If you want to read about Johntheplantman’s award winning novel, Requiem for a Redneck, You may find it on Kindle at

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FOAJCGO

Or to read the printed book and the reviews on Amazon,

http://www.amazon.com/Requiem-Redneck-John-P-Schulz/dp/0981825206/

Would you like more Bubba stories?  Let me know.

Thanks, johntheplantman