The ol South Texas Jackalopes are tough critters. Here’s my last I took in hand to hand combat after a miss with the .36.
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I got to thinking about when my neighborhood was young. By that I mean there were a lot of children that would run and play up & down the street all day without any cares in the world.
It would sure be nice to be young again. It would still be fun to have the imagination of a child.
All of this makes me think of when I use to plant tootsie rolls for the children in my neighborhood.
I instituted the tootsie roll planting ritual with the 4-year-old girl next door. We found a promising looking spot in the back yard and selected the best-looking tootsie rolls in the bunch. Ensure that the wrapper is on really tight before putting them in the ground. Keep reading and you will see why we have to leave it wrapped.
Before planting, dissolve a quarter cup of sugar in a large pitcher of water. This is to guarantee a hard, crunchy outer coating on the fruit of our labors. Any sugar will suffice but if you want to double the flavor then use unrefined brown sugar and two tablespoons of honey to mix with the water.
The soil where I live is extremely hard so I had to get a large screwdriver or a section of reinforcing bar (rebar) to poke a hole in the ground to place the tootsie roll. For those of you that are fortunate to have back yards with softer soil you can dig a hole no more than 2 inches deep to plant the tootsie roll.
After placing the tootsie roll in the ground make sure it is completely covered. Remember to tamp the soil down real hard so the
Horney-Winged Jack-o-lopes don't steal your candy.
What? You have never heard of the
Horney-Winged Jack-o-lope? This strange Cryptozoic oddity originated from Bavaria. In Germany, this animal is called the
Wolpertinger and was actually the inspiration for Mary Shelly's book
"Frankenstein." The real Dr. Frankenstein was actually a nice fellow with a sense of humor.
He also drank a lot. With that said, he and some of his colleagues from the University of Munich were trying to crossbreed some animals for Fredrick The Great's growing cavalry force. It was their dream to use crossbreeding to create a winged animal that would be used for the Emperor's cavalry.
The flying Pegasus idea was already abandoned at the turn of the 16th century. The first attempts at crossbreeding were solely with a horse and falcon but were unsuccessful as the poor creatures died
in utero. Dr. Frankenstein's notes were lost in a fire that destroyed his estate in 1821. So, we will probably never know the scientific rationale for using the red stag, snowshoe hare and the falcon for his crossbreeding experiment.
The first attempts at crossbreeding the three animals succeeded beyond Dr. Frankenstein's wildest expectations. However, the scientists were not able to produce offspring any higher than 24 inches at the shoulder. Excuse me, I mean wing. The diminutive result of Dr. Frankenstein’s scientific endeavor became known as the
Wolpertinger.
However, Frederick The Great was less than pleased. In a fit of anger, the Emperor threw Dr. Frankenstein and his colleagues out of the Königsberg Castle.
As he was giving them the boot, he was heard to shout his oft quoted statement;
"Glaubst du, ich möchte eine Armee von fliegenden Midget-Rennfahrer erziehen? Es ist nicht groß genug, um meinen kleinsten Kavallerieoffizier zu halten! Nimm dieses verdammte Ding hier raus und gehst ein paar Hühner zu!"
Which translated means;
"Do you think I want to raise an army of flying midget racers? It's not big enough to hold my smallest cavalry officer! Take this darn thing out of here and go raise some laying hens!"
So far, this delightfully delusory tome doesn't fit the story that Mary Shelly wrote. This is because her and Lord Byron were into writing tragedies, when they weren’t making whoopie. The real story of Dr. Frankenstein and his
Wolpertinger was too funny and unbelievable to put in print.
She decided to bring a human back to life in her book. She felt that readers would find that more plausible than a story about a genetically engineered composite avian ungulate hatched from an egg emanating from the mind of a scientific prankster during a drunken crossbreeding experiment. As we know, her book became a best seller.
It's a historical fact that some careless German immigrants from Bavaria tried to tame the
Wolpertinger with a little success. It's primarily a nocturnal animal that prefers seclusion. It doesn't mix well with humans unless the egg is hatched outside the presence of the mother hen and in front of a human. The bonding takes place when the baby
Wolpertinger sees a human being (after their eyes are opened) instead of a mother
Wolpertinger.
By the way, infant Wolpertingers have a high mortality rate. This is because they are able to fly before their eyes are opened. I’ll let you figure that one out.
There were no game laws and animal quarantines in the 18th century. A few Bavarian families brought a limited number of pet
Wolpertingers to the new world in 1783. The population grew and then it was almost hunted to extinction. After that, snipe hunting took off in boy scout camps all over the US. The legend of the
Wolpertinger was almost relegated to the dust bin of history.
We now know this amazing animal to be the
Horney-Winged Jack-o-lope. The reason you don't see them is because they fly at night to feed on the bats but that won't stop them from digging your tootsie rolls up out of the ground. Here is a photo of
Wolpertinger that was mounted by a taxidermist at the
Deutsches Jagd und Fischereimuseum or
German Hunting and Fishing Museum in downtown Munich.
The reason I know so much about the
Wolpertinger is because my initial attempts at planting tootsie rolls failed. I would go out to the garden in the morning and discover holes had been dug again. There were a lot of mysterious scratch marks in the soil where I did my planting.
A friend of mine, who works as a wildlife biologist for the Department of Natural Resources examined the evidence when I asked for his help. He told me that it could only be the work of the
Horney-Winged Jack-o-lope, aka the
Wolpertinger!
The solution to my problem was simple as he explained it to me;
"You need to pack the soil down real hard as the Wolpertinger is an opportunistic animal. If he's going to have to work for his food, he'll go seek something else to eat."
The answer to my problem was that simple and now you know what the
Wolpertinger has to do with planting of tootsie rolls.
Now the next part is especially important and you must not do this yourself. The child has to do the watering. They may need some assistance but it's imperative that they do the watering. One pitcher of the sugar-water should be enough for six tootsie roll plants. Let the child pour equal amounts of water on the tootsie roll
"seeds."
For this next step you have to disregard all of your innate inhibitions and throw discretion out the window. Join hands with the child and if there is more than one, all of you should join hands to form a circle.
Then all of you need to dance in a circle while singing the Tootsie Roll song from the old TV commercial. Here are the lyrics that you can put to any merry melody if you don’t know the song.
The world looks mighty good to me, cause Tootsie rolls are all I see.
Whatever it is I think I see, becomes a Tootsie roll to me.
Tootsie roll how I love your chocolaty chew.
Tootsie roll I think I'm in love with you.
Whatever it is I think I see, becomes a Tootsie roll to me.
Oh, I almost forgot;
DO NOT PLANT THE TOOTSIE ROLLS IF RAIN IS FORECAST FOR THAT EVENING! The downpour will drown the tootsie roll seeds and wash away the sugar water mixture. Not only that, but the soil will also then be soft enough for the
Wolpertinger to get the tootsie rolls that you've taken such care to plant
If you have done everything according to my instructions the child should be greeted with fresh Tootsie Pops germinating from the soil with the wrapper intact the next morning!
As you may surmise; word spread among the preschoolers in my neighborhood about my Tootsie Pop garden. So, they all wanted to get in on the good deal.
Half a dozen of these little street urchins descended upon my home one afternoon extorting me to plant a Tootsie Pop garden. I won’t repeat what they threatened me with but it’s my firm belief that children should be prohibited from using any form of social media.
Reluctantly, I planted six rows of Tootsie Rolls. Each row was delineated with tautly tied twine between stakes at opposite ends of the garden. After a sleepless night I was relieved to see six rows of Tootsie Pop plants come up one morning.
As I was drinking my coffee and looking out the back window, I saw each child run into my back yard, in their pajamas, go to their assigned row and pick the Tootsie Pops out of the ground. That was between 6:00 and 6:30 AM!
Oh, and by the way, my friend from the Department of Natural Resources told me to give up on the idea of trying to trap or ensnare the
Wolpertinger. It is not only a state crime but is against
16 U.S.C. §1531 The Endangered Species Act. If you get caught with one, you could find yourself behind bars for an exceptionally long time.
Can you imagine explaining why you're in prison to your fellow inmates?
"Well you see... I was planting candy for the children in my neighborhood... and I also wanted to trap the Wolpertinger..."
Be careful and have fun!
