About a Mongoose Named Mr. Magoo

It's been awhile since my last blog.  Been on a week's vacation in Maui where, on my last day, I saw dozens of mongoose (mongeese?) scampering amidst lava formations on a golf course. I couldn't help but think of Mr. Magoo.  No, not the nearly blind cartoon character voiced by Jim Backus, who also played Thurston Howell III on Gilligan's Island.  I refer instead to the Indian mongoose that arrived in Duluth, mid-60s, aboard a foreign ship.  As an illegal immigrant, the arrival of this weasel-like carnivore was a big story on KDAL and WDSM.  It was going to be killed but after legal wrangling the Duluth Zoo was allowed to keep the varmint after President Kennedy granted Mr. Magoo an official pardon.  According to my research Mr. M. lived at the zoo until its death in 1968. During a 6th grade field trip that included the zoo I remember seeing the mongoose.

Hawaii is extremely wary of people bringing animals onto the islands now.  Before arrival everyone must fill out a form listing any animals - including any protozoans - you've included in your luggage. After some more quick research via the web I learned that decades ago mongoose were intentionally imported into the islands by sugar cane growers.  They thought it would be a good idea to help protect their cane from the rat population.  Unfortunately these mongoose eat everything including eggs of birds and turtles.  The mongoose population has soared.  Native species of animals are becoming extinct on the islands because of the mongoose population.

That's it for today.  Maybe I'll write more about that same Duluth field trip another time, and I will pose this question:  Is it a good idea to bring six graders to a slaughter and meat packing house?

Another Vacation in Minnesota

In the last blog I wrote about Brainerd and its park devoted to lumberjack Paul Bunyan. I wish I had a photo of my mom during our visit to Brainerd.  She probably wore a dress.  I think the picture below was taken on a vacation only a few years earlier.

We were at a gift shop - a Trading Post - somewhere near Aitken or Deerwood.  I would guess my youngest sister snapped the photo which would date it in the spring or summer of 1959, before or just after Karen graduated and moved to Minneapolis.

I think this was the place where Mom suddenly caught sight of a ceramic ashtray souvenir - it was shaped like a coiled rattlesnake.  Like Indiana Jones, Mom has phobia when it comes to snakes (ophidiophobia).   Seeing this "snake" Mom let out a scream.  Karen and I were in another aisle of the gift shop at the time. Leaving Mom in the care of my dad, we aimed straight for the door and went outside, pretending not to know that crazy lady.


Now back to the dress.  It wasn't just June Cleaver.  Moms wore dresses back then.  A photo in an earlier blog shows my mom on our Harris Farm, in a dress while wrangling some goats.

Paul Bunyan, a Ghost of Minnesota Travels Past

Weather's in the 80s this week.  The tomatoes are planted in our little patch.  So I decided to take a memory trip to  summers past.

I do believe the old Paul Bunyan Amusement park has come and gone.  Relocated elsewhere in or near Brainerd, I believe.  Can it be as wonderful as the park I remember?  I don't know how he did it, but Paul B. actually knew me by name!! And me with such an unusual name, too.  But then, he was the hero of tall tales.

Here I am on a statue of Mr. Bunyan's dog.  The dog obviously got in the way of some tree felling and was unluckily sewn together by someone who needed to pay more attention in Home Ec class.

I would guess the photo was taken in the summer of 1960 or 61.

Besides Paul's hearty welcome, my strongest memory regards a talented chicken.  It shared its cage with a tiny piano. If you put a nickel in a slot, corn was released through a shoot into the pen.  The chicken, now paid, would play for you.  Nothing fancy, of course.  The hen's repertoire, no doubt, was small.

By the way, can anyone tell me the name of Paul's doggie???