Tiger Salamander

As I was walking this morning, I found not one–but two–dead garter snakes on the road. I actually nudged one with my shoe to see if it was really dead or just warming itself on the pavement. Unconsciously, I suppose I was on the look-out for snakes, having just removed one from my basement stairs a few nights ago. My 24 yr. old son, Quinn, yelled from the basement that there was a snake on the stairs. Sure enough, there it was, all 9 inches of reptile glory. With hot dog tongs and my grandson’s sand pail in hand, I rescued my son who was standing a safe distance away AND the snake who lived to enter our home another day. As the last remnants of fear left my son, genuine admiration took over. Wow, thanks Mom. With my best John-Wayne-aw-shucks voice, I responded Yeah, well I grew up with snakes. I handled my share of them. 

And indeed I did. Summer for the Welch girls signaled the annual trip to my granddad’s biology classroom in Gothenburg, Nebraska. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had nothing on my granddad’s classroom. We trembled in anticipation as my granddad fished his school keys from his pocket and unlocked the door. Behind this oak door lay exotic wonders of terror and delight. In a large glass jar on a shelf in the storage room was a two-headed calf, floating eternally in formaldehyde. Another jar housed an albino rattlesnake, killed in the foothills of Nebraska and gifted as a specimen of interest. But these were the dead wonders. We came for the living.

Along the windows were the terrariums and aquariums that held the year’s creatures for biologic study. Turtles, lizards, snakes, fish, and salamanders: glorious, slimy mud puppies in all sizes with a varying number of limbs. Our favorites? The three-legged ones that had yet to regenerate their fourth leg. Salamanders can regrow their legs, our granddad explained, so we have been studying this process called regeneration. For a child, this scientific spectacle defied anything we had ever seen or known. And the fact that we were the soon-to-be proud owners of these three-legged wonders? We could barely contain our glee. Boxes and plastic food containers in hand, our open palms quivered as my granddad reached into the terrarium and plucked out several salamanders that would come to live 60 miles away in our home.

Before diversity was a thing, I lived in a diverse home. Over the years, we hosted snakes, lizards, turtles, frogs, toads, salamanders, sunfish, tapoles, gerbils, hamsters, dazed birds who, blinded by the sun, tried to fly through our picture windows, cats, and, of course, homing pigeons. We were a diverse lot, to be sure. And my sisters and I understood the intent of affirmative action before the term was coined. We deliberated our reptilian and amphibian selections each summer. We didn’t have a snake last summer, so we need this garter snake. Will our swordfish and black mollies be o.k with these sunfish? Well, they’re just going to have to get along. How many salamanders do we really need? We really need a frog or two in this terrarium. And so it went. In the Sanctuary of Salamanders, etc. there is something to be said about equal representation.

This summer sanctuary was not always rosy, though. While carrying the shoe box with a bull snake from the car to our back door, my sister tripped, the box spilling its reptilian contents somewhere in the grass near the pigeon loft. Within seconds, our would-be snake pet had vanished. And within days, my mother’s friends had heard the story and, with regrets, refused to visit.

Once while I was holding my lizard, frightened by the sound of my mother’s Kirby vacuum cleaner, he leapt from my hand and vanished under the whirling head of the Kirby. Stunned, I could only mutter Mom, you sucked up my lizard. To which my mom assured me that he was probably still alive in the vacuum cleaner bag, just a little dusty and scared. When she offered to open the bag, this was more than I could take. No, I said, let’s just say he had a good life and leave it at that. 

In the Sanctuary of Salamanders, etc., there will be unfortunate events. Nothing, however, could have prepared me for the turtle tragedy. My sister, Timaree, and I had two small painted turtles in a plastic bowl, outfitted with a circular ramp to a fake palm tree. One morning, as I was coming down for breakfast, I stopped on the landing where, on a window seat, our turtles lived. As I peered groggily into the bowl, I noticed that there was only one turtle–my sister’s– there. She probably took mine out to make me mad. She’s probably hiding it in her room just to freak me out. Emboldened with a sense of rightful possession, I stomped down the steps and burst into the kitchen to confront my sister.

My mother was at the sink, rinsing the night’s dishes, and my grammie was at the table, drinking coffee and eating toast. Before I could tattle to my mom, my grammie shrieked, throwing her toast into the air. I turned to see my youngest sister, Erin, in the doorway. A small green turtle foot dangling from her mouth. I screamed. Then Erin screamed, opening her mouth enough to reveal the turtle lying lifeless in a pool of saliva on her tongue. She killed my turtle!  As my mom instructed my sister to spit it out, my grammie gagged, and I sobbed. The lifeless turtle fell into my mom’s hand, having died–she said–from shock, probably a heart attack. We have never let my sister forget this, and the turtle tragedy lives on, having been told and retold in three states to countless students over four decades. In the Sanctuary of Salamanders, etc., there will be joy, and there will be sorrow.

And the sunfish? Who knew that they would leap to their death, leaving dry fish carcasses scattered on my bedroom carpet? The tadpoles we caught in the park and brought home in a jar? Who knew that they were–according to my dad who closely inspected them–actually leeches? The gerbil who escaped from his cage on the top of our upright piano? Who knew that he didn’t die and would be found living–three months later–in our basement? The Sanctuary of Salamanders, etc. is a place of perpetual surprise.

Truthfully, I continue to fight the compulsion to bring critters home. A few years ago, I bought a gerbil–for Gracyn, I told my family. He was later loosed in the timber near our house to live with the mice and moles. Last summer, Gracyn and I made a terrarium to house the snails we found in and around our woodpile. It was, I must admit, one of the better terrariums I have outfitted, and the snails were living in style. Every time I pass the pet section at Walmart, I find myself transfixed by the rows of aquariums with tropical fish. And then I have to remind myself of the countless aquariums I have had, the maintenance they require, and say to myself: Just walk away. 

Still. If I found a salamander today, my fingers would twitch, my pulse quicken, and I would not be able to help myself. I would make the trip to Walmart to buy yet another terrarium. I would convince myself of its educational value for my grandchildren. And I would, once again, enter the Sanctuary of Salamanders, etc. To borrow–and modify–a line from Robert Frost’s “Birches”: one could do worse than be a lover of salamanders. 

In closing, if you want to experience just a bit of my childhood biology room wonder, check out this article by Lauren Hansen in The Week (March 19, 2013). You will see some two-headed wonders!

http://theweek.com/articles/466505/double-takes-9-curious-images-twoheaded-animals