Juice Jug & A Hatchet

The evening air was thick with the smell of fresh mowed grass.  The sound of suburban lawnmowers hummed from the neighborhood. I could hear my cousins laughing with delight.  They lived two doors down.


Our families had been drawn to the beach subdivision just a 20 minute drive south of Cape Canaveral where our fathers both worked for the space program.  My step-dad worked for Martin Marietta in their shipping and receiving department.  Martin was building the Titan missiles at that time.  My uncle worked for Boeing in the VAB.  That's the Vertical Assembly Building where the missiles were erected prior to launch.


As kids we were blasé when it came to the launch of missiles since it seemed it happened all the time.  I was 10 in 1960 when we moved from Seattle to Satellite Beach.  It was, as I was to discover in my later years, a great place AND a great time to grow up.  Homes at that time didn't have air conditioning, but since we only lived two blocks from the ocean we had cool breezes to soften the heat of Florida. 


I went down to my cousins yard to find out what they were laughing about.  They had two baby rabbits.  Furry brown balls of cuteness.  My uncle had disturbed a nest while mowing the yard.  I wanted one.  I searched the yard but no more baby rabbits were to be found.  I went home disappointed.  It was Sunday night and Bonanza was on!


The next morning I joined my cousins at the corner to wait for the School bus.  While we were waiting around I spotted something brown and furry squirming in the grass a few feet away.  YAY! A baby rabbit.  I ran over and scooped it up.  OUCH!  It bit me.


I was totally surprised to discover what I thought was a baby bunny was actually a really angry rat.  It had been disabled by the neighbor's Siamese cat.  My uncle, who was in the driveway about to head to work noticed the commotion at the bus stop and came to my aid.  He caught the rat and put it in a paper bag and summoned my mom.


Great, I didn't have to go to school now.  It was off to the doctor in Cocoa Beach to see about my finger.  After getting in to see the doctor he contacted the county health department for guidance.  They advised they would have to send the rat for rabies testing to determine my medical treatment.  We were to bring the rat to their offices in Rockledge, a town on the mainland about 30 minutes away.  Great, I don't have to go to school at all today!


We drove up there with the rat scratching at the bag only to be told they only wanted the rat's head and it had to be in an airtight container before they would accept it.  OK, now what?  First on the to do list, an airtight container.  There was no such thing as zip lock food storage back then.  It was glass or Tupperware and Tupperware was had to come by at such short notice, not to mention expensive. 


There was a hardware store down the road so we went in there to see what they had.  Back then hardware stores also carried kitchen ware.  We found a glass jug for keeping orange juice in the fridge.  It had a plastic lid.  Perfect. 


Now came the problem of separating the rat from his head.  Hardware store.  Hatchet.  Handy.  Ok, so we went thru the check out with our two purchases.  The juice jug and a hatchet. 


Back in the car we were faced with the terrible fact that someone had to chop off that rat's head and get it into the jug.  My mother was not about to do that job.  Not in a million years.  And that acorn didn't fall far from the tree since I was not about to do it either.  I imagine the rat would be none too fond of that plan either.


We drove around as though somehow an answer would reveal itself to us.  Then, as we stopped at a rail road crossing we spotted two guys walking along the tracks.  My mom got their attention and they came over to the car.  They were teenagers, likely skipping school.  My mom offered them $5.00 to chop off the rat's head and put it into the jug.  While I am sure they thought she was crazy, I am equally sure they were happy to get the $5.00.  They did the job and we submitted the grizzly prize to the Health Department for it's testing.


Three days later the lab report came in.  Inconclusive.  Meaning I had to get rabies shots "just in case".  So I got a full series of rabies shots which took place over a month.  The horror stories about agonizing shots in the stomach were not true in my case.  They were simples shot in my shoulder blade and  didn't hardly hurt.  I was very lucky. 


Still, in my later years on the police force I was bitten by a rat snake, squirrel, dog and teenage girl.  For which I received equally painful tetanus shots.  I also received tetanus shots for being skewered in the hand by an anhinga and sliced up on barbwire fences chasing cows and horses from the highway.


It's all fun and games until you have to go to the ER.