If I was driving my car to work a life may have been taken from our green planet, but I was cruising along on my old bicycle which gave him time to react. As I passed through a shady suburb he was standing right in the middle of the street, he was either standing guard in the center of the road or chose to do his morning meditations there. I pressed the brakes and he turned to look at me and his tail gave a sudden twitch. His meditation turned into a spontaneous act of martial arts, he jumped and landed on all fours facing me and jerked his bushy tail again. Next the squirrel took three hops to the left covering as many feet then stopped to flick his tale two more times, (I am sure it is an obscene gesture in civilized squirrel society), he darted to the right five feet and stopped again no doubt to gauge my progress. Turning around he dashed back across my path, scampered up a tree and began to make squirrel barking sounds at me. Since I am an American I only speak one language, and do not understand "squirrelleze." If I did I am sure what he was saying was not polite and I should have been offended.
I am glad the little squirrel made it back to his home to the tree, and all he experienced was an inconvenient scare. If I was driving my car I would have regrettably and sadly injured the tiny creature. All of us have collided with some frail living thing at one time or another, it is an inevitable fact of cars. I wondered how many of God's creatures have been sent to premature graves because of my tires and bumpers. I remember a few; one, an old lady's cat, still comes to haunt my dreams from a collision with my tire thirty years ago. I recall that I phoned her to tell her how sorry I was to hit her cat, she cried, and I was depressed for some long time. I remember another time when two birds fluttered down on the road just in front of my truck they disappeared underneath and my mirror revealed a tumbling cloud of feathers.
Bicycling is slower, animals and people have a better opportunity to escape collision. If a bunny is hit by a bicyclist his injury is likely to be a fraction as severe as if he was hit by a two ton car speeding at forty miles an hour.
We are stewards of our planet, and have a moral responsibility to seek ways to lessen the effect of our being here. We are responsible to protect and preserve what God has put here, be it either the living creatures or the inanimate resources of the earth. We each must come to terms with these truths; others may make a different decision but I feel that for me a reasonable response is to take every opportunity to park my car and ride my bicycle.
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| This Might Have Been The Last Thing He Saw In Life. |
I am glad the little squirrel made it back to his home to the tree, and all he experienced was an inconvenient scare. If I was driving my car I would have regrettably and sadly injured the tiny creature. All of us have collided with some frail living thing at one time or another, it is an inevitable fact of cars. I wondered how many of God's creatures have been sent to premature graves because of my tires and bumpers. I remember a few; one, an old lady's cat, still comes to haunt my dreams from a collision with my tire thirty years ago. I recall that I phoned her to tell her how sorry I was to hit her cat, she cried, and I was depressed for some long time. I remember another time when two birds fluttered down on the road just in front of my truck they disappeared underneath and my mirror revealed a tumbling cloud of feathers.
Bicycling is slower, animals and people have a better opportunity to escape collision. If a bunny is hit by a bicyclist his injury is likely to be a fraction as severe as if he was hit by a two ton car speeding at forty miles an hour.
We are stewards of our planet, and have a moral responsibility to seek ways to lessen the effect of our being here. We are responsible to protect and preserve what God has put here, be it either the living creatures or the inanimate resources of the earth. We each must come to terms with these truths; others may make a different decision but I feel that for me a reasonable response is to take every opportunity to park my car and ride my bicycle.
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| A squirrel's eye View of a Bicyclist |
