Squirrely memories

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

It’s always welcome when something reminds me of my grandma. It’ll be 14 years next month since I last spoke to her, before she passed away at the age of 89. Born in rural Montana in 1922, she came to Sandpoint with her parents, two sisters and brother when she was so young that she didn’t remember it. With the exception of a brief stint in beauty school in Spokane, all the rest of those years were spent here. And during the times when I lived here, too, I don’t think much more than a week ever went by without me seeing her at least once — and usually at her kitchen table.

We shared a lot of conversations about a lot of things. Call me a weirdo or “grandma’s boy,” but I never had a problem talking to her about anything that was on my mind or going on in my life. I mean all kinds of stuff. Personal stuff, deep stuff. Stuff people don’t typically talk to their grandmas about. She reciprocated that level of candor and shared so much of herself that when I remember her, it’s as much as a best friend as an elder relative.

Anyway, squirrels were what brought her to mind the other day. Specifically, the story of how red fox squirrels came to Sandpoint. Steve and Judy York emailed the Reader the other day with the idea of sharing that story, and included the link to an Associated Press article datelined Sandpoint and published in 1991 in the Seattle Times under the headline: “Squirrel Squabble: Area Being Overrun.”

I immediately knew exactly what the story would be, because it was one of the many things my grandma told me about.

Here’s what happened: When then-Idaho Fish and Game Commissioner Pete Thompson retired in 1984, friends and family (including my grandma) gathered at his home north of town. Amid the revelry, someone released 28 red fox squirrels imported from Boise as a gift. By 1991, the AP reported, “Wildlife officials and residents could not provide a count of the squirrels now, but all agreed they have multiplied dramatically and spread their territory well beyond Thompson’s property.”

Not everyone was charmed. Beyond failing to perform any studies before releasing the animals in Sandpoint, the AP pointed out that red fox squirrels were transplants to the state as a whole, having been brought to Boise from Missouri in the 1800s.

It should be underscored that North Idaho did not have a single red fox squirrel that anyone knows of until that day. Then came the tree rats. And my grandma was none too happy about it. Because of the unvarnished nature of our conversations, grandma was more than willing to share her regrets. Among them were voting for Richard Nixon a second time and attending Pete Thompson’s retirement party, and therefore being implicated in the proliferation of the very squirrels that one day harassed and hogged her beloved bird feeders. 

When I describe her bird feeders as “beloved,” I’m not kidding. Alongside crosswords, watching golf, listening to the radio, playing Scrabble with her sisters and monitoring the lake, feeding and keeping tabs on the birds outside her kitchen window was among her supreme pleasures. Those damn squirrels were a constant pest, though.

Every time she saw one messing with her seeds, she had a personal beef. She greased the poles on the feeders and laughed with rueful glee when the rodentine raiders slipped and fell. She had her son — my dad — help squirrel-proof by putting upside down cones on the greasy poles. She even kept a Super Soaker at the ready to blast the things with water, which she once told me she spiked with vinegar and/or rubbing alcohol. (But I don’t think I believe her.) 

All that said, my grandma was a devoted lover of all wildlife, and so even had a soft spot for the fluffy-tailed varmints. While cursing and actively working to thwart them, she also kept a bag of shell-on peanuts in the closet by the front door to feed them. Maybe the idea was to distract them from the feeders. I don’t know. She was a complicated person. 

Regardless, I remember being a little kid — no older than 10 — and holding out peanuts for them to snatch and scurry treeward. Then one bit me, and I have to say that my opinion of red fox squirrels has remained more than dim to the present day. Still, recollecting grandma through the squirrely pathways of memory like this makes me like them just a little bit more.