Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 on a pay-by-the-dime typewriter in the basement of a library in 1950. Maybe there was a painting on the wall in front of him. Maybe he had a dictionary or an encyclopedia open on his table while he worked. Maybe there was a shelf of books nearby whose spines interested him. Maybe someone he knew walked in from time to time and said hello.
But what if…
What if, as Ray tried to write his classic dystopian novel, a newspaper landed on his desk every fifteen minutes? The first one is local news, and he ignores it because he already knows what’s happening in his small town. But the next one is national news, and the next covers the upcoming election from and angle he hasn’t seen before. The one after that is from London, the following one from China, then Russia. Then a local newspaper from a village in Peru where a beautiful bird he never knew existed is on the verge of extinction.
What if there was a window in the room where Ray wrote? People he knows walk by outside. They are people he has not seen in years, even decades. Some wave, some stop and watch him type, some hold up signs at the window saying, “Hi! How are you? Remember that time we went fishing and you fell in the lake?” Now Ray is remembering it and feeling amusement, nostalgia, gratitude, and regret all rolled into one.
Perhaps Ray Bradbury was not alone in the room. Picture a woman in one corner in a white lab coat with a placard in front of her reading, Doctor/ Scientist/ Engineer/ Specialist in the fields of botany, meteorology, and machinery. In another corner sits a woman whose badge says, “Professor of History, 1500-Present.” A man in the third corner of the room wears a smug look and a t-shirt proclaiming, “EXPERT IN EVERYTHING. ASK ME ANYTHING.” He does not look especially trustworthy, but the compulsion to ask him a question is strong regardless. In the fourth corner of the room is a sleeping kitten. Every five minutes, it wakes up and runs in adorable circles for fifteen seconds before settling back down into a purring pile of fur.
Imagine that a man carrying a tray of items walks by. They are pieces of fruit made of plastic and they are for sale. Ray ignores him. The next time he comes through, the trinkets are shaped like trees instead. Ray gives them a cursory glance and keeps typing. The next time the salesman appears, the trinkets are made of crystal and formed into cats and snowmen. Ray picks a couple up, puts them down again, waves the man away. But the next time he walks by, his tray is full of wooden trinkets, carefully carved and painted into black cats, orange pumpkins, and yellow moons. He sets the tray next to Ray’s typewriter and waits.
More dictionaries and thesauruses and encyclopedias keep appearing on the table. A bag of unanswered mail is propped against Ray’s chair. The librarian comes in every twenty minutes with a new message. “Your wife is on the phone.” “Your dog called. He needs to go outside.” “A gentleman wants to know if you’re interested in selling your home.” “A woman from a faraway country says you have won a prize.” A coffee shop opens in the basement of the library. The smell of roasting beans and cinnamon rolls wafts through the air, and a teenager plays an acoustic guitar, butchering a song written before he was born.
What if, in the middle of these unlimited resources and constant connections, Ray Bradbury never runs out of paper, never runs out of ink, and the library never closes? Would he find himself writing his masterpiece in a utopia? Or a horror story?
***
“It was summer and moonlight and we had lemonade to drink, and we held the cold glasses in our hands, and Dad read the stereo-newspapers inserted into the special hat you put on your head and which turned the microscopic page in front of the magnifying lens if you blinked three times in succession.” ― Ray Bradbury, The Illustrated Man
“Stuff your eyes with wonder, he said, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.” ― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
“We have too many cellphones. We’ve got too many internets. We have got to get rid of those machines. We have too many machines now.” ― Ray Bradbury
This week marks the one year anniversary of my first volunteer shift with the North Texas Wildlife Center. One year ago, I could not recognize the cries of a baby squirrel or identify opossum poop by its smell. One year ago, I didn’t know what an anhinga was. One year ago, I had never held a baby bobcat or been sprayed by a skunk.
Now, all that has changed. I’ve learned so much and have experienced so many new things and have gained so much respect and affection for my fellow volunteers. Everyone at NTXWC works so hard and gives so much time and heart to helping animals. In addition to volunteering at the center once a week, I also joined the transport team and began working the intake line. So if you call about an animal concern on a Sunday, Monday or Tuesday, you’re likely to hear my voice giving you advice.
The NTXWC number is 469-901-9453. Our intake line is open 10am-7pm on weekdays and 12pm-7pm on weekends and holidays.
Over the past year, I’ve kept a journal of my experiences volunteering at the center, Uber-ing animals around, and answering calls. The journal is almost full. Rather than try to explain what a year of working with rehabbers has been like, I’ll instead share a few snippets from my wildlife diary. And since today is about celebrating, I’m only choosing anecdotes that make me smile.
But first, a few disclaimers…
All opinions and views expressed in this post are my own and do not represent the opinions and views of the organization I volunteer with.
Many of these snippets are taken out of context or describe a small moment that was part of a much larger experience.
The goal of NTXWC is to rescue, rehab, and release injured and orphaned wildlife, and they always have the best interest of the animal at heart. I’m proud to work with them. If you have any questions about the animals or situations below, don’t hesitate to ask me for more information.
Snippets From My Wildlife Diary
September 22, 2023: I fed baby squirrels for the first time today. I’m not very good at it yet. I am, however, covered in squirrel pee and poo.
September 25, 2023: Squirrel feeding went much better today, but one little girl would not put down her treat for me to give her formula. She got really angry when I tried to take it away, so finally I gave up and let her sit on the table eating it while I fed everyone else. When she finished, she calmed down and let me feed her formula.
“MY treat! Mine! Mine! Mine!”
October 30, 2023: Today I gave an opossum a flea bath. I think I enjoyed it more than she did.
December 11, 2023: Today I helped an opossum named Spencer do his physical therapy in the bathtub.
February 23, 2024: During my volunteer shift today, I was asked to visually check all of the opies (baby opossums) in a cage. There were seven babies inside, but they were all nestled into the hammock, and since it was a top cage, I couldn’t really see in, so I just had to reach in and grab them one by one, somewhat blindly. (I counted them like The Count on Sesame Street as I did so.) They were very hissy and a little bitey, but they were also very tiny, so their hisses and bites were not scary. However, once I apparently reached directly into an open opie mouth and it bit the tip of my gloved finger. It didn’t hurt, but it did startle me, and I squeaked pretty loudly.
March 8, 2024: Today I was assigned cleaning and feeding in the “Nut House” (the large outdoor enclosure containing multiple squirrel cages). When I finished one of the cages, I apparently did not double check the cage latches, and two squirrels escaped into the nut house. One was sweet and calm and almost immediately went back in her cage, but the other one was (excuse the pun) NUTS and ran circles, squares, figure eights, and double helixes around the enclosure while I attempted to capture it with gloves and my flannel shirt. I never even came close to being successful. It ran over me twice, once leaping onto my head and knocking my glasses askew. I later had to clean squirrel prints off the lenses. Finally, I had to use my brain to catch the darn thing, blocking the other squirrel into the top half of the cage, opening the bottom half, and enticing the escapee inside with pecans. It eventually worked, and neither the squirrel nor I came to any harm.
* PRO TIP: ALWAYS double check the latches! *
March 16, 2024: Baby opies are my new favorite thing. They are so adorable with their soft gray fur and big mouse ears and pink noses and toes-es and tails. They wrap those little prehensile tails around anything they can grab. And the hissing! The way they open those little dinosaur mouths and show those tiny teeth and hiss! So cute and so not threatening. (But don’t tell them that.) I also moved five baby ducklings out of an incubator temporarily so I could clean it. So wiggly and fuzzy. It’s like picking up a squirming ball of lint with a beak and feet.
Sweet little opie.
* FUN FACT: Female opossums have thirteen nipples. Male opossums have zero. A mama opie’s nipples are inside her pouch, and male opies don’t have pouches. *
March 29, 2024: I got to reach inside a mama opossum’s pouch to take a baby out. It’s more spacious in there than I expected.
April 10, 2024: I transported an injured mama opossum with babies from Dallas Animal Services to our wildlife center in Plano today. I do not recommend transporting a smelly opie in your car just before you go grocery shopping.
May 4, 2024: Today a baby coyote pup came in, a male, just under two pounds, probably about four to six weeks old. He had fleas and mange and possibly ringworm but was still adorable as heck with his little paws and little ears and little brown muzzle. I held him (with gloves on of course) and watched as the shift lead gave him a flea bath and examined him. He wouldn’t take a bottle, but when they gave him lapping formula and touched his little chin to it, he licked the formula off his mouth and then began to slowly, awkwardly lap for a few minutes. I couldn’t stop watching him. It was so sweet. They took him to the vet and then he is going to go to a permitted, off-site rehabber.
Baby coyote getting weighed.
May 12, 2024: Today I peed in front of a beaver. It was a little awkward for both of us. She was in the bathtub at the center, and I had to use the bathroom, so… The beaver has recovered from her injuries and tomorrow will be released back into her pond where her family lives. Hooray for happy endings! I also did laundry (there is always SO MUCH laundry), did dishes (there are always SO MANY dishes), made raccoon formula, bottle-fed baby raccoons, showed a new volunteer around, fed screech owls, and held a baby armadillo for the first time.
This is one of my favorite things to do.
June 7, 2024: I got to hold fuzzy baby skunks. So much cuteness! One fell asleep in my cupped hands. I set up a cage in one of the outdoor enclosures for the two little babies and the slightly larger, more volatile baby. It kept showing me its butt, but it never actually sprayed.
June 14, 2024: Before my shift today, I drove to South Garland to pick up two orphaned baby opossums. The babies were very small but did not seem injured. The finder had them in a small, lidless box on a towel, and they were just lying there not moving around, so I put that box inside my cardboard animal carrier, closed it up, and put it in the back seat. When I was less than five minutes from the wildlife center, I was stopped at a red light when I saw one of the opies crawl out from under my front passenger seat. Oops! Apparently he was small enough to fit through the holes of the carrier. I quickly scooped him up and put him in my lap. He wanted to drive, but that was not allowed, so he just fell asleep curled up in the palm of my hand for the last couple of minutes of the ride.
* PRO TIP: Always make sure your passenger is not small enough to fit through the air holes of their container! *
June 28, 2024: Tonight I caught and rescued three adorable orphaned baby skunks! I was soooo proud of myself. I felt like Wonder Woman, if Wonder Woman had been a wildlife rehabber instead of a crime fighter.
* FUN FACT: The collective noun for a group of these little stinkers is a “surfeit.” *
I caught a surfeit of skunks!
June 29, 2024: I drove twelve teenage raccoons and a bunch of supplies to a Buc-ee’s about an hour away. There, I met a rehabber who would drive them the rest of the way to her property where she has a lunch larger outdoor enclosure for them to live in until they are big enough to be released back into the wild. It was very loud in my car.
I said there were ten raccoons, but I was wrong. There were twelve. I was in charge of driving them, not counting them.
* WARNING: Never turn your back on a cage of teenage raccoons. They will pull your ponytail and pick your pockets! *
July 5, 2024: One of our large outdoor enclosures is currently empty, and the door is open, so a wild dove checked herself in to rehab. She flew in, settled down, and seems to have no intention of leaving for a while. Oh well. Self care is important. I gave her some bird seed.
July 13, 2024:
Texting with my hubby.
* WARNING: Skunks can spray with accuracy up to ten feet, but the spray can travel up to twenty feet if it’s windy. *
* FUN FACT: “Spray” is really not the right word for what skunks do. That word brings to mind a fine mist or a squirt bottle. This is more like shooting Mountain Dew-colored pudding from a super-soaker. Also, while the hydrogen peroxide/ dish soap/ baking soda concoction worked well to remove the skunk scent from my body (after thoroughly washing, no one else could smell the stink on me) it did not remove the scent from my own nostrils. (I continued to smell skunk for days.) *
* PRO TIP: Before attempting to release an adult skunk from a trap, you should probably have protective clothing and a plan. *
August 9, 2024: I moved several opossums from cages inside the center to cages in an outdoor enclosure to prepare them for release back into the wild. One opie got very scared when I put him in the box to carry him outside. He pooped in the box and then went completely limp. When I put him in his nice new cage, he wouldn’t stand up at all, just lay flat and lifeless. I brought him back inside so the shift lead could check him out and make sure he was okay. She examined him and said he was find and told me to put him back in the new cage and set a timer to check on him in ten minutes. I did, and when I went back, all four opossums were running around the new cage. I couldn’t even tell which one he was anymore.
This little opie also played dead when I took her to the center. Don’t worry, she became alive again when I put her in an incubator with a blanket and food.
August 30, 2024: Today I cleaned opossum cages, fed baby birds, learned how to work the intake line, played with the one-eyed opie who is training to be an educational ambassador for another facility, and fed baby squirrels. I marveled at how much easier it was to feed the squirrels than the first time I did it last fall. I have become so much more confident at handling the animals and everything feels so much more intuitive to me now. I was refilling syringes with one hand while keeping the squirrel from wiggling away with the other and keeping track in my head of how many milliliters I’d given them even while carrying on a conversation with my shift lead. It’s amazing how much I’ve learned and how far I’ve come over the past year.
I hope this post made you learn something. I hope it made you smile. If nothing else, I hope it made you Google “anhinga” or “opossum nipples.”
Want to Volunteer? If you’d like to volunteer at the North Texas Wildlife Center, let me know in the comments, or contact me via my website.
Meet Our Ambassadors! If you don’t want to volunteer but you’d still like to help the organization and meet some cute animal ambassadors, come to one of our events next week. (See details below.)
I wish I hadn’t been inspired to write this poem. I wish it hadn’t been relevant enough to take home first place in the Shirley Elliot Cosby Memorial Award at the Poetry Society of Texas annual banquet last year. I wish I didn’t feel the need to share it with you. I wish “back to school” season caused only feelings of excitement and happy butterflies in the hearts of all of my teacher friends.
I wish every student and teacher and school employee everywhere a safe and happy 2024-2025 school year.
Did I Miss Anything?
Columbine happened in 1999. Those students would be in their forties now. Moms, dads, spouses, business owners, teachers, artists, doctors, Uber drivers, the people who feed the stray cats in their neighborhood, the ones who laugh too loud in movies, the neighbors who always pick up their dogs’ poop, and the ones who don’t.
Sandy Hook happened in 2012. Those children would be teenagers now. Learning to drive, taking the SAT, buying dresses for dances, playing the trumpet, sneaking a beer, dying their hair, thinking about college, falling in love, making bad choices, and good ones.
Uvalde happened two months ago. Those kids would be on summer vacation now. Eating cereal for breakfast, playing video games, taking trips to the library and the beach, fighting with their siblings, annoying their parents, growing out of last year’s new clothes, and complaining that the summer is too short.
When students are absent, they come back to school and say, “Did I miss anything?” as if the world stops when they’re gone, as if no one could possibly learn anything if they’re not present. These victims of gun violence have missed so much. But the world has not stopped, and no one has learned anything.
Carie Juettner 