December 2 – “The Creature”

We were first alerted by far-away sounds of squealing and perhaps a bit of nervous laughter.  Our attention now garnered, we turned toward the back door, only to me met with a thundering horde of grandchildren racing in our direction, all talking excitedly and at once.  What new adventure had presented itself this time?  What treasure trove of delights could possibly have lifted their spirits to such waves of excitement?  A larger than usual snail find?  No.  A long ago buried and recently unearthed G.I. Joe action figure gun accessory?  Nope.  All of those were small potatoes compared to this epic find.  This one required the presence of an adult – any adult – all adults – to be verified.  This was a “you gotta come see this right now or I will just about explode” demand.  Now that’s an important discovery.

And what, pray tell, could possibly hold such a mesmerizing hold over the enthusiasm of such an array of grandchildren?  Well, their announcement began thusly, “We found something in the yard.  We think it’s a bat.”  OK.  Now, as awesome as they are, no Louisville Slugger could ever inspire such interest over such a broad range of ages.  No, this must be one of the “other” bats.  The animal kind.  We have seen them before around here.  Those tiny little ones with the big teeth that look like they escaped from some exhibit at Moody Gardens.  Our neighborhood black cat captured one.  Played with it until it died – right in our driveway.  I always wondered if that had anything to do with that cat living so long.  You know what they say about a bite from a vampire bat.  So that’s what I was expecting when I allowed myself to be led/dragged to the scene.  One of the dogs must have stumbled on it or something.  I dreaded having to clean up that kind of mess

And there it was.  Not the tiny black scary thing I remembered, though.  This was a ball of brown fur with one six or eight inch wing, the unmistakable wing of none other than a certain well-known super-hero’s iconic emblem.  The other wing was apparently curled beneath him, or maybe torn away in the struggle with whatever predator brought it to this unceremonious end.  Now, I must hasten to say that we like bats in Galveston, for our fair city is also home to some of those dreaded interlopers from the swamps of Houston, Texas Mosquitoes.  And bats eat mosquitoes.  The thought did cross my mind that perhaps one or two of those giant insects turned on this poor guy who was just out for a simple meal.  But then I realized that this guy was much too big for such trivial pursuits.  He was built for taking a bite out of much bigger game.  Or … well … maybe of fruit.

Sadly, I am not one to carry my phone camera with me everywhere I go, and the ladies who do engage in such 24 hour a day, on call reporter activity would probably not want to be anywhere near the scene, so there is no video record of the event.  I did verify to the kids that it was a bat and directed them not to touch it.  I didn’t think the admonition would be necessary.  After all, who wants to take a chance and actually come in contact with the purveyor of rabies or worse still, vampire-dom?  I went back inside to get a towel so I wouldn’t have to touch it either.  Hey, I’ve been around the block a few times.  I was planning a way to keep the carcass and create some kind of home school science display.  All about the education, you know.  That’s the great thing about being considered an adult.  You can do random, ridiculous things in the name of “teaching the kids.”  Now to make sure this story qualifies as a scientific treatise and not just the ramblings of a senile old geezer, I will hasten to report that the creature we saw was most assuredly a large brown fruit bat.  Look it up on page … oops … I digress into science.  I will leave that to the experts.  Take it from here, Moms and Dads.

So back to us kids.  I returned with the towel and no particular plan in my head for what to do next.  True to his inherent nature as a country boy (Hey, around here, LaMarque, bordering on Hitchcock, is way out in the country), Jachin had found a nearby stick and was conducting experiments of his own.  Poking and prodding with the meticulous skill of a surgeon, he wanted to make absolutely sure the dangerous beast was indeed dead.  Just as I started the towel drop portion of our scientific experiment, Dr. Jachin made one last prod, one last, desperate attempt to flip the creature over so he could stare into those wicked, yet lifeless eyes.  And that … that one final effort … was the one tiny bit of encouragement the little imp had been waiting for.  His hidden wing exploded from underneath him, revealing a wingspan of at least fifteen inches.  His evil-looking head jerked up, glaring at us with a look that would inspire horror in the most avid of Vincent Price fans.  With but a brief stutter-step to gain momentum, away he flew, to a chorus of screams and squeals from terrified, yet secretly delighted, grandchildren.  Ah, how we wished that the Mommies could have had this experience.  Now that would have been truly unforgettable.

Genesis 1:24-25 says, “And God said, ‘Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.’ And it was so.  God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.”

Father, thank you for all the creatures you placed on our planet.  And thank you for giving us the ability to experience excitement of discovery, the wonder of investigation, the anticipation of the unexpected and maybe most of all, that rush of adrenaline that we all felt when the bat leapt from the grass and tore off into the sky.  Just … wow.  Amen.