The summer job that almost killed him
Thinking back on it, it’s a wonder that I’m still alive. After I completed my junior year at Oklahoma State University, I snagged a summer job down in west Texas. My help had been enlisted in capturing the wild animals that are called javelinas (which is pronounced: “have-uh-lee-nuhs”). They are creatures that very closely resemble a pig, but they are not actually pigs.
I was a member of the scientific team that was attaching identification collars to these wild animals. The goal was to learn more about their natural history.
My co-workers knew that I was eager to get some “handson” field experience. After all, I was actively pursuing a degree in wildlife ecology at OSU. What better way for me to learn than to be handed the capture device? It was a dog-catcher’s tool, of sorts. It was a stick with a rope loop attached to the end. The whole idea was to slip the noose over the animal’s head and then snug up the slack line. That would allow me to have an immobilized animal at a stick’s distance from me.
Albeit, I was young then. Looking back on all of this, I now realize that I should have been peppering my co-workers with all sorts of helpful questions. Needless to say, I kept silent.
The javelina was inside a live trap. The trap was nothing more fancy than a box with a trap door at one end. My coworkers removed the trap’s door. Across that opening, they placed a sheet of plywood. There was space enough at the top of the board for me to reach inside the box trap. I got to work. Try as I might, I could not get the loop of rope over the animal’s head. The biggest impediment was that the box trap was long, and my capture tool was short.
I asked my co-workers for help. They explained to me that I needed to bend over at the waist and thread my upper body into the space above the board. This was, they explained, the way to give me access to the animal at the rear of the box trap.
Oh, did I fail to tell you that this javelina was a mom? ... and ... that she was very, very angry? The biggest reason for this animal’s duress was that she had her offspring there in the box trap with her, and she was bound and determined to protect that youngster from any harm that might come his way.
Push finally came to shove, and the parent animal hurtled up to my end of the box trap and threw herself up into the air in an attempt to bury her sharp tusks into my young, tender flesh. I panicked. I dropped the capture tool. My first reaction was to straighten back up from my waist and distance myself from the danger. That was all for naught because I had wormed my way inside the box trap, and getting myself out of that predicament proved to be no easy task.
I eventually realized that I needed to walk backward. When I got back out to safety, I was flushed with fear and was shaking like a leaf. My co-workers, on the other hand, were beside themselves with cackling bouts of laughter.
It was all, as you might now imagine, just one enormous “practical joke” to which I had so gullibly succumbed.
My supervisor pushed me aside and then he easily lassoed the javelina with the extra-long-handled capture pole that he had so devilishly hidden from my view when we first began this exercise.
Many years have come and gone since that frightening experience in the outdoor world. The passage of time, however, has not muted the mere fact that this particular joke was much too mean-spirited and cruel.
That particular agency in Texas never was able to lure me back for additional employment opportunities.
Go figure!