An Ode to Fatty Cracker
It turns out I only have two funny animal anecdotes. Of those, I only trot out one even semi-regularly: the time I got into a tug-of-war over a hose with some pigs. It was the summer after senior year of high school. I thought it would be fun to spice things up, switch out my lifeguard whistle for a part-time gig on a meat farm. Let’s just say it was not the most bucolic of experiences and leave it at that.
The other anecdote dates back earlier to the days of now-foggy childhood memories. Growing up, my mom, sister, and I would make our annual trek from the East Coast to California to visit my mom’s family. As much as I loved seeing my grandma, it would be equivocal not to mention one of the most significant highlights of those visits: the parks. I don’t know why, but I thought the parks in Palo Alto were simply unparalleled in jungle gym quality, swing height, and fountains in which to splash around.
I would beg my mom to take me to the best park, Mitchell Park, virtually as soon as we arrived at my grandma’s house. Mitchell Park had a fantastic fountain. The best rope pyramid within miles. And, the best squirrel. His name was Fatty Cracker. He was majestic, bold, and blessed with a startling agility for his size. I wish I had a photo—though a still image would not do him justice. To appreciate him, you had to see him in action.
I once watched Fatty Cracker leap into a stroller, seize an entire sandwich, and scurry away with grace befitting a puma. He commandeered small children’s snacks left momentarily unattended with the precision of a pickpocket and the audacity of a parkour freerunner. To a shy child, he was both an inspiration and a familiar, semi-secret joke.
A dear friend of mine is an aspiring mammalogist. In high school, we had many a chat about bizarre animals—I myself went through a brief phase of being obsessed with tardigrades. Another one of our classmates decided to breed axolotls. High school was an interesting time. What evolved was that somehow every time my mammalogist friend brought up anything rodent-related, I would ask, completely in earnest, “have I ever told you about this one squirrel I used to see in California?” We would have these chats just infrequently enough that I would always forget that I had already told my friend this story.
Finally, my friend had to stop me and say yes, you’ve told me about Fatty Cracker. Many times. It turned out that while I hadn’t told any of our other friends about Fatty Cracker, I’d told this friend probably half a dozen times. What can I say? There’s a lot to learn from and admire about Fatty Cracker. And if we were already talking about animals—what a perfect segue.
I did stop telling the Fatty Cracker story so much. In fact, I don’t think I’ve told it in years. So why am I sharing it after all this time? Because now, as of this weekend, I’ve finally gotten the last laugh. That same dear mammalogist friend visited me this weekend. We were taking a little work/homework break and I’d been reading cases for half an hour or so when my friend broke the silence: “You HAVE to look at this!” Her boyfriend had just introduced her to the Indian Giant Squirrel (pictured below). It is, admittedly, a stunning squirrel. (For those of you reading the black and white copy, I encourage you to look at this article online so you can see it in color.)
Finally, I was not the one to bring up squirrels! It took years. I had bided my time. “You know what that reminds me of…”
Photo Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/yes-giant-technicolor-squirrels-actually-roam-forests-southern-india-180971886/
Note: this article is an excuse to publish a photo of this truly stunning squirrel.
