The Year of the Possum

 

Picture a possum.

Go ahead, in your mind right now, picture a possum.

I’ll give you a moment…

…a little more time…

…okay, that’s enough.

Chances are that lots of us framed a similar sight. Let me guess…he had beady eyes, probably shining in that evil twinkle as your car’s headlights stared him down. There he crouched, mouth agape and stained of discarded Sweet Baby Ray’s barbeque sauce, a chicken bone cracked in his crooked teeth. He stopped, snarled with a pink-mouthed scorn, and scampered away in seething angst.

Close? If so, you are not alone in your vision. Possums are common enough in the Midwest to be seen by most, and ugly enough to be remembered by all. Or, at least we remember them as ugly, that is.

The Stranger Possum

I live in the woods. This is not the woods like some suburban neighborhood named “Whispering Woods” or “Wood’s Edge” where it’s all in the name. No, I live in the kind of woods where when winter comes and the leaves fall down, you say to yourself, “Holy cow, there’s actually another house out here.” Woods where coyote pups practice their barking at night and gray and black squirrels enliven the landscape at day. Woods where most of the trees were born before me and many will live long after me. An ancient American Indian burial mound is rumored to be up the hill to the north. An arrow from a bow and arrow sticks in the ground to the south, decades since it was last touched and lost. And oh yes, there are possums. Lots of ‘em.

Not many nights go by that I don’t drive home late and see a grayish, whitish possum fanny motoring into the brush somewhere. Some nights I’ll walk out onto my deck in the pitch dark and a possum or two will clumsily, almost embarrassedly, run to the corner post, scale it up, then down, into the woods. I like the possum. He is worth watching.

Really, I feel sorry for the possum. He is, after all, not the handsomest of beasts. He has neither the raccoon’s Robin Hood wink nor the beaver’s humble roundness. Nor is the possum musical. He sings nothing and howls not at all. He eats garbage and roadkill, that’s what he does, or so we see him do when we see him at all. And thus I feel sorry for the possum, sorry that we don’t know him well. He works while we sleep, after all.

The Personal Possum

I visited the wildlife refuge facility near Eureka, Missouri once. I was bringing in a baby squirrel I had nursed back to health, but I’d recommend the trip to anyone, rescued squirrel or not. The building is in an old jailhouse, sturdy and plain, neutral, somewhat uninviting from the outside. Yet the inside…oh the life! Squirrels rattle in spacious cages and stare as you walk by and litters of raccoons scuttle around tree limbs. When I was there, even a majestic prince of a red fox lay gracefully in his own private den.

And oh yes, there were possums. Lots of ‘em. You know what, up close they’re not so ugly. They don’t snarl and their eyes don’t twinkle with evil. On the contrary, the one thing I remember about the possums at the refuge was this – they hug each other. They fold into each other’s bodies and cuddle. Families of possums, big and small, draped in and amongst breathing bellies and warm breath and thick tails, hugging each other. It’s true. Go see for yourself.

The Peaceful Possum

Yet let us not forget that our possum is truly legendary for one thing - playing possum! (Well, I guess they don’t play possum, they are possum, and as humans we play possum, but I digress.) Often used disparagingly or at least in teasing, “playing possum” is not really a banner of American pride. No U.S. state has as its state animal the possum. (As a side note, the state of Victoria in southern Australia chose the Leadbeater’s possum as the official state animal. I feel obligated to add that possums in Australia are actually quite cute and social.)

Playing possum. Is it really so disgraceful? Upon inspection, you’d see that the possum actually has some vicious claws and teeth along with pretty strong rear haunches. And we know he’s got a mean snarl. He could fight back, after all, and probably quite effectively. Yet possum pride often yields to possum strategy, the strategy of playing dead, emitting a “death musk” scent, and then waiting patiently for the harassment to subside, for the antagonist to get bored or look away, and then – poof! – possum escape. Whose laughing now? Man, that possum ain’t so dumb and he ain’t no chicken. Rather, he’s safe at home with the wife and kids, probably hugging them. In the wild kingdom, our possum often chooses peace over pride.

The Year of the Possum

Choosing peace over pride…that seems almost banner worthy to me. More so even, when you consider such sentiment was taught in the Sermon on the Mount. "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” Jesus was not teaching us to be wimpish, scared, and defeated. On the contrary, he was calling us to be wise, strategic, and peaceful. He wants us home hugging our families, you see.

So this year let us declare 2007 the Year of the Possum. Let us raise our glasses to a year of wisdom, strategy, and the choosing of peace before pride.

Now ya’ll go hug your families.

bn

December 2006