Springtime In Gilmer
By Nikki Pelezo / Dirt Roads
A strange event occurred a couple of years ago with a ratt-a-tatt, ratt-a-tatt at our glass front door. Either Charlie or I would check to see who was knocking; no one at the door. This went on all day, maybe every ten to fifteen minutes.
I stationed myself just inside the door. I didn’t have to long to wait, when there was another ratt-a-tatt. I moved my head just in time to see a dangling dead lizard and a blur. I waited a few more minutes and ratt-a-tatt and caught sight of a streak making for the oak tree. I watched from the dining room window and saw a roadrunner with a dangling lizard peek around the back of the oak tree. He raced over to the glass door and did his darnedest to attract the ‘female roadrunner’ living in our glass door. He hopped, pranced, shimmied and pulled a Rudolph Valentino look that would have melted every female roadrunner within a thirty mile radius. This is when we assumed this was Rudy our resident roadrunner and bless his heart, not exactly college material.
This went on for a few more days, but when we found a dead lizard on the porch floor beneath the glass door, it was all over. We would catch sight of Rudy off and on for a few more days, but he remained alone. Rudy kept a watchful eye out on our house, knowing in his heart that the female roadrunner living in our house would step outside.
Rudy was the proud progeny of Ronald and Nancy. Ronald and Nancy lived in the huge cedar tree on the edge of the woods. Those two had a swift, but loving courtship and ran the roads all hours and didn’t abide by any curfew whatsoever. When we first spied Rudy, Ronald and Nancy were taking him out for a run down Rosemary Road. Poor Rudy was all feet at first but it didn’t take him long before he was awesomely handsome.
We think Ronald and Nancy went on a well deserved cruise to Cozumel, because they abandoned Rudy and didn’t come back. Poor Rudy spent the rest of the summer running the roads. He zipped up and down FM 1975 like he owned it. If he was lonesome, he didn’t show it. He managed to keep himself busy perfecting his snake eating skills.
About a month after the glass door incident we caught sight of Rudy way down Mistletoe Road. We knew there was a family of roadrunners that had a couple of daughters of dubious character living around the first curve. Anyway, the last we saw of Rudy, he and his main squeeze were hightailing it down FM 593.
So far, this year, we haven’t any roadrunners living in our neck of the woods. Probably because of the chain saw activity with the dropping of the dead oak trees. We have plenty of snakes, scorpions and lizards so I’m thinking of taking out an ad in the Gilmer Mirror advertising the cedar tree rental.
Oh yeah, roadrunners don’t answer to Beep-Beep, we tried.