U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Southeast Region, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, joins the keeper and Phyllis in the proximity of pond eco systems where hidden predators—huge snapping turtles, dominate to the threat and detriment of all other life forms; and, of course, the keeper and Phyllis find that the human “pond” they inhabit is likewise under the siege of vicious predators and endless amphibian croaking.
Someone—unfortunately the keeper could not reidentify who, recently posted about the “monster” of Tiedeman Pond taking down gooselings with spectacular splashing; and then there was a conversation at Verona’s swimming pond with a man from alligator country reportedly seeing a “huge, clawed,” paw rise above the pond surface near where kids swam.
In his never-ending efforts to be a part of the scum of Nature, the keeper identifies the pond-like condition of the current political scene where vicious predators lurk beneath the surface; and surviving a stroll around the pond or a swim across it is a matter of dumb luck.
The keeper and Phyllis do not pond swim, but they pond stroll, and sometimes they sit on a pond bench and think about how Mitch McConnell resembles a snapping turtle, and how Ron Johnson sounds like a toad.
