Phil, great party, and educational too, as well as entertaining.
earlier, Phil Scovell, wrote:
Saturday, just
past, we had a very unusual birthday party for Elijah, one of our
grandsons that is adopted by my youngest 31 year old Son, Everett.
I call him Lee, that is, my grandson, some call him Eli, while others use
his full name of Elijah. He is 10 years old now. Lee is part
American Indian, part Black, and part Mexican. He has a Mo hawk
hair cut and when he started at his new public school, he was the only Mo
Hawk in the school. Within weeks, more than a half a dozen boys got
the same hair cut. My wife and I paid for a pet store to bring
about 10 animals to the house to be held and petted and we had a houseful
of people at my son's home in back of our house on Saturday.
Besides all the kids, we had other relatives and friends. The man
from the pet store, and his partner, came and set up the holding boxes
and put on quite a show for over an hour. He taught us about each
animal, where it was from, what they ate, and how they protected
themselves in the wild. We felt, saw, and held each animal.
Some are quite exotic, too. Well, I'd say they all were
exotic. A couple were North American, some were South American,
some were from Australia and one was from Asia. I can't remember
the names of each specie but he started out with two different sizes of
snakes; one small and one large. The MC, Master of Ceremonies, had
Lee stand in front of everybody, eyes closed, and he would put each
animal in his hands before he could open his eyes again. The first
little stake the MC put into Lee's short sleeved shirt and the little guy
crawled around until he came out the bottom of his shirt as the man told
us about him. No, none of the creatures would bite unless you tried
to hurt them. Some of you may have heard of Sugar Gliders.
They are about the size and color, to some degree, of a chipmunk but when
they stretch out their arms and back legs, webbing comes out and they
literally glide through the air. They live in trees, I forget
where, and eat much of what parrots and other wild birds eat. From
the top of a tall tree, they have been recorded to glide up to 900 feet
or three football fields in length. You can buy them here in stores
as pets but they recommend buying two because they are so gregarious,
they will die from loneliness so they don't recommend them for people not
at home most of the time. Another one of the unusual animals were
two different lizards. One walked on his hind feet but the other on
4 legs. We held a scorpion in the palms of our hands and also a
tarantula. There was a critter of the monitor family which lives in
the jungle and is larger than our little dogs; much larger. When
they get older, they eat animals brought down by lions during their hunts
with their super sharp teeth. If a lion gives them any trouble,
they have a whip like tail which they use to slap a lion across the eyes
and face and it is so painful, most lions leave their pray to this
animal. It is related to the Komodo Dragon from the orient.
The man said that his friend has one that isn't so friendly and one of
his buddies came over and got too close to the thing and the animal
whipped his friend with it's tail and even wearing jeans, his friend had
to get 14 stitches. His body felt lizard like to me when the guy
let Sandy and I feel him. Then there was the huge frog like
animal. He doesn't hop but he was huge. They eat both insects
and small animals; even rabbits, rats, and mice. His belly was damp
and felt like large balls of jello while his back felt rough. When
it gets hot and dry, they dig a round hole and sit in it. There
back spreads out and he is completely hidden from pray. This is
when the fat belly he has discharges moisture so he doesn't over
heat. They feet by just staying in the little whole and they then
use only their very long tongue to grab food walking too close. He
was heavy, too, at least 10 pounds but they grow much larger. All
in all, it was quite the birthday party.
Phil.
Living His Name
John