www.esryle.comLOCAL NEWS ACROSS THE NATION
Posted on 06/29/2004 7:51:18 AM PDT by esryle
BETTENDORF, Iowa - A couple has finally discovered what was happening to the yellow ribbons they were tying to the trees in their yard in support of their son and other troops in Iraq.
"The ribbons started to disappear. Every time it disappeared, I would hang a new one," said Bob Saskowski, who tied the ribbons with his wife, Alexis.
It went on for eight months. The last straw was when three ribbons disappeared in three days.
So Bob Saskowski appealed to his neighbors through a memo, asking them to talk to their teenagers about respect and patriotism and asked for their help.
"It indicated I needed their eyes to help them watch the trees," he said.
Neighbors responded by adding yellow ribbons to the trees in their yards.
"My husband and I were ticked," said neighbor Patty Kenyon. "And we all decided if this person was going to pick on Bob, they can pick on all of us. And we literally put ribbons up and down the street."
The ribbons kept disappearing, but only from the Saskowski yard.
"We thought someone had a vengeance against us, personally, because no one else's ribbons in the neighborhood was disappearing," Saskowski said.
Finally, the couple set up a video camera, focused on the yard. Six weeks later, they caught the culprit on tape. The ribbon was being shimmied slowly down the trunk.
At the base, the squirrel pushing the ribbon, bit through the ribbon and took off with it.
"We can laugh now," Saskowski said. "Before, it was not funny."
He says the squirrel was actually a good thing.
"And I named him Patriot because he brought our neighborhood together," Saskowski said.
hehehe cute story... wish there was a pic
Well they are American Squirrels after all. They needed ribbons for their abodes.
Hehehe yeah.
'"And I named him Patriot because he brought our neighborhood together," Saskowski said.'
No, Saskowski brought his neighborhood together. He spoke to his neighbors as friends and enlisted their aid. They responded as friends and gave their aid. Moral: talk to your neighbors and assume they are your friends and they will be.
good point
LOL. Thanks for posting this.
Very well said.
bump
'"And I named him Patriot because he brought our neighborhood together," Saskowski said.'
They should have named him "Stew".
"Stew"
LOL
I put the feeders and suet cakes under big shields and I've seen some squirrels hanging by their back toenails over the suet cake devouring it. The Downey woodpeckers hate it when the squirrels do that.
They kept missing candy from a vending machine. They decided someone was stealing candy bars and chips somehow. They set up one of those old video cameras across from the machine. A little while later a squirrel hops up on the tray where the candy comes out, looks around, disappears inside, then pops out with a bag of Cheetos.
After that story made the local paper a news crew went out and staked out the machine and caught a few more shots of him getting more stuff. IIRC, he came out once with Juicy Fruit gum and once with a Baby Ruth bar. I think he made off with a pack of peanut butter crackers too.
Later, the company that serviced the machine installed a new one that had a spring-loaded plastic door-thingy over the tray so he couldn’t get in. Pretty funny to watch the clips on the news though.
Steenkin' squirrel ping.
Hey...
Squirrel, Havahort trap, peanut butter, pellet pistol, repeat as needed
Maybe the next neighborhood support activity should be a community squirrel-shoot....hehehe.
find later bump
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