bacon by Lonnie Millsap for August 25, 2023

I’ve never had a squirrel do that.

We also have trouble when you run up our pants legs.

Or into our homes.

I’d gladly let a squirrel run up my arm! But they’re always so skittish. They run away. I love the scene in “It’s a Wonderful Life” where Uncle Billy is pretty much having a nervous breakdown trying to find the money he lost and he’s sitting at a desk crying. Then his pet squirrel comes up on his arm as if to say “It’ll be OK, Daddy. Don’t cry.”

Well, when I was kid, I’d take a trip

Every summer, down to Mississipp’

To visit my granny in her Antebellum world

I’d run barefooted all day long

Climbing trees, free as a song

One day, I happened to catch myself a squirrel

Well, I stuffed him down in an old shoebox

And punched a couple holes in the top

When Sunday came, I snuck him into church

Well, I sit way back in the very last pew

Showin’ him to my good buddy Hugh

When that squirrel got loose and went totally berserk!

Well, what happened next is hard to tell

Some thought it was Heaven, others thought it was Hell

But the fact that something was among us was plain to see

As the choir sang “I surrender all”

The squirrel ran up Harv Newlan’s coveralls

Harv leaped to his feet and said

“Something’s got a hold on me! Yeah!”

The day the squirrel went berserk

In the First Self-Righteous Church

In that sleepy little town of Pascagoula (Pascagoula)

It was a fight for survival that broke out in revival

They were jumpin’ pews and shouting “Hallelujah!” (Hallelujah!)

You know Harv hit the aisles dancin’ and screamin’

Some thought he had religion, others thought he had a demon

And Harv thought he had a Weed Eater loose in his Fruit-of-the-Looms

He fell to his knees to plead and beg

And that squirrel ran out of his britches leg

Unobserved, to the other side of the room

All the way down to the amen pew

Where sat Sister Bertha better-than-you

Who’d been watchin’ all the commotion with sadistic glee

You should’ve seen that look in her eyes

When that squirrel jumped her garters and crossed her thighs

She jumped to her feet and said, “Lord! Have mercy on me!”

As that squirrel made laps inside her dress

She began to cry and then to confess

To sins that would make a sailor blush with shame

She told the gossip and church dissension

But the thing that got the most attention

Was when she talked about her love life

And then she started naming names

The day the squirrel went berserk

In the First Self-Righteous Church

In that sleepy little town of Pascagoula (Pascagoula)

It was a fight for survival that broke out in revival

They were jumpin’ pews and shouting “Hallelujah!” (Hallelujah!)

Well, seven deacons and then the pastor got saved

And 25, 000 dollars was raised

And 50 volunteered for missions in the Congo on the spot

And even without an invitation

There were at least 500 rededications

And we all got re-baptized whether we needed it or not

Now you’ve heard the Bible story, I guess

How He parted the waters for Moses to pass

All the miracles God has brought to this ol’ world

But the one I’ll remember ‘til my dyin’ day

Is how He put that church back on the narrow way

With the heart praise and a Mississippi squirrel

The day the squirrel went berserk

In the First Self-Righteous Church

In that sleepy little town of Pascagoula (Pascagoula)

It was a fight for survival that broke out in revival

They were jumpin’ pews and shouting “Hallelujah!” (Hallelujah!)

The day the squirrel went berserk

In the First Self-Righteous Church

In that sleepy little town of Pascagoula (Pascagoula)

It was a fight for survival that broke out in revival

They were jumpin’ pews and shouting “Halleluja

Sometimes they have an arms race to see who’s the fastest.

If you’re a guy, you have to worry when they run up your pant leg, grab a nut, and run.

If you think running up an arm loses cuteness.. see what they think if you run up a leg.

I had one sit on my shoulder and pat me on the face when I was out in the woods supposedly deer hun ting with hubby. Leaning against a tree, sound asleep and the squirrel decided to check me out. Highlight of the day (even better than my thermos of tea and PBJ sandwich for lunch).