White Squirrel

I’m up in Brevard, NC for a couple of days visiting friends. The mountain weather is just about perfect, seventy five degrees with a nice breeze. Walking is such a great way to see a small town like Brevard. It’s known as the home of the white squirrel, a rare animal found in only a few places in the US. Allegedly they were brought here when a traveling circus came through town and a pair escaped. The circus was unable to find the two fugitives, and when the circus left town, the squirrels stayed. 

Years passed, and the amorous couple began to produce offspring. There is a healthy population here now I hear, but in several visits, I have never actually seen one. 

My walking takes me through the campus of Brevard college. It’s Spring and everything is blooming, multi-colored azaleas, daffodils, and dogwoods. Students are out and about, heading to class, lounging in the sun, throwing a frisbee. Everyone is happy, including the birds, who are singing to each other like nobody’s business. But still no white squirrel. Maybe a little too busy for them here.

I continue walking down Broad Street and come upon the Veterans Museum of the Carolinas, right next to the historic old brick courthouse.

I really have a soft spot for museums and military history so I can’t pass it up.  

The museum is run by volunteer veterans, and (let’s call him) Bob, is on duty today. He’s super friendly, and when he sees I’m from Atlanta, tells me he was just there last week for a vet reunion. Shows me on his phone an Italian restaurant I have to try when I get back home. He’s very proud, and rightfully so, of the museum itself. There are different rooms for every theater, World War I, World War II, Korean War, Cold War, Vietnam, and the Gulf War. 

I didn’t serve in the military, but lost two great uncles in WWII. The older, my namesake James, was wounded in the Pacific and brought home where he died from his wounds. The younger one, my grandfather’s youngest brother and the “baby” of the family, was killed by a German machine gun a few days into France after D Day. He was 21, and had just returned from leave where he had married his high school sweetheart. I still have pictures of Buster, and know it broke my great grandmother’s heart to lose him. My grandfather kept a few of his personal items in a green bag hanging in the hall closet. A tin cigarette case, a zippo lighter, and a blood stained pocket bible. For a child it was fascinating.

In the World War II room I look at an infantryman’s olive drab uniform, then at a German MG42 machine gun, the kind that almost certainly took my uncle’s life. Known as the deadliest, most reliable, and fastest shooting machine gun of the war, these weapons killed more allied soldiers than any tank or battleship. I study the stark, utilitarian beauty of it, sinister and deadly. A snake in the tall grass, waiting…

Back out into the sun, my walk takes me a different route back, through neighborhoods of mountain bungalows and century old homes. Gray squirrels are out in force, leaping limb to limb, chattering among themselves. It’s a beautiful time of day as I meander back to the house where we’re staying.

And it’s then that I spot him, a bright white squirrel against the emerald green grass, in the front yard of a large old brick house. He sits up and gnaws at a nut, oblivious to me. Or probably just doesn’t care. Protected by law, his only predator the occasional hawk, he’s a white squirrel in a gray squirrel world. And, still thinking about the museum, and the terrible and personal cost of war, it feels like a sign, and makes my day to see him.