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Publication Date 5-13-10 A couple of decades ago I had a rat problem. Rats and farms don't co-exist too well. Besides the creepy naked tail factor, rats spread disease, spoil grain, and decimate walls, wiring, and insulation. I have to admit, it was the creepy naked tail factor that bothered me the most. I poisoned, trapped, shot, cleaned up weeds, poured cement, nailed tin around foundations…all in a losing battle. There was always this small influx of rats that showed up. I blamed my neighbors for a while (sorry about that), but finally discovered that the mother lode of rats was in a pit a quarter mile from our house where we used to bury our garbage. I had taken a mower out there to whack down the tall grass and discovered holes, burrows and mounds hither and yon throughout the whole area. The final battle in the Olson/Rat War involved 10 gallons of gasoline and a 12 gauge shotgun. I'm not going to go into details, because it was pretty gruesome, and I may well have some karma issues down the road because of it, but the thing is, it worked. I don't know if I killed all the rats or if they were just so shocked by the escalation of my hostilities that they decided to leave for a different territory. Late one night a few years ago, I was telling that story to a group of people. I don't tell it very often, but it was very late, there was a certain amount of whiskey involved, and the majority of the other people were college professors, so I might have given in to an unflattering urge to shock them a little. I finished the story by explaining that I was perfectly willing to feed the rats, to co-exist in any number of ways, but they persisted in ruining everything they touched. One of the guys there, the only world-famous poet I'll ever meet, but also a guy who grew up on a farm, chuckled and said, “You can't talk to a rat.” Exactly. Why am I bringing this up? The memory first popped into my head when I watched CNN and saw executives from Wall Street explaining to Congress that what they had done when they wrecked our economy was legal. They seemed a little puzzled when asked if their actions were ethical. That's just one example. I could go on and on, at great length, and I bet if you could, too. Of course, what I find puzzling and inexplicable might not match what's on your list, but I'm guessing most of us could find something in common that we just can't endure – the rat that chews through our walls and ruins our seed wheat. - Obviously, people aren't rats. I'm certainly not advocating any actions with either gasoline or 12 gauges. But I think it's okay, maybe more than okay, maybe even important, to pass the word on up that there are some things that we just aren't willing to put up with anymore. Copyright 2010 Brent Olson Brent Olson |
