An Opossum is not a Cat !!!

A Happy Family

On the website Awkward Family Photos, on this webpage, in the comments, Courtnie wrote:

The possum was our uncle's pet. His [the opossum's] name was Buddy. We caught the possum in a barrel in the back yard… long story. We played with him like a puppy. Sad, but we had more than one as pets. Even raised a mom with babies.

Cournie's brother Ernie wrote:

The kid on the left is me. I have had years of therapy, and have finally recovered from this photo.

The kid on the right was my younger cousin, who was killed a few years back in a motorcycle accident. The two gentlemen were my uncle and grandfather.

Today is my 39th birthday, so this must have been about 30 years ago. I am embarrassed to say that this photo was sort of planned. We were out working in the pasture splitting firewood, and when we came in from lunch, my grandmother apparently thought we looked photogenic, and made us get in the car over to Olan Mills in Douglasville, Georgia.

Glad I could share the joy on this one. Whenever I see it, the Dukes of Hazard theme starts playing in my head…”Just some good ole boys, never meanin’ no harm…”

Michael and I were the only two boys of all the cousins on my mother’s side, so he was really like a brother to me growing up. He died doing what he loved, and we all miss him terribly.

Mike was a a tow-truck driver, and at his funeral there were literally hundreds of people, and dozens of wreckers. Mike’s wife got a special permit so that they could transport his casket on the back of his wrecker (and it was bungie corded down!) and at every stoplight on the back roads between Douglasville and Marietta where he is buried, there was a tow-truck with it’s lights on blocking traffic for us.

At one point, a car tried to pass on the right to pass the funeral procession, and some of Mike’s friends headed it off, and almost got into a fistfight with the driver (which was right in front of us). I turned to my wife and said, “that is how Mike would have wanted it: A fight at his funeral!”

In any case, the hat my uncle is wearing is from Southern Tech (Which is Southern Poly now) and my grandfather’s hat was advertising some feed store. My grandfather has a masters degree, and my grandmother (his wife) had a PhD. I just got my MBA, so it just goes to show you that you can’t educate the redneck out of a redneck.

Spiritual Master Adopts Perfect Opossum Pet

Louix Dor Dempriey is a spiritual Master who has come into this world to help people restore their inherent divinity and live as unconditional love. With grace and humor, He imparts timeless wisdom in contemporary, practical teachings, making self-mastery and true, inner peace attainable for all—for His life models both the journey and the victory of God-realization.

Louix is the subject of a new DVD, A Voice from Eternity (An Evening with Louix Dor Dempriey), and a feature-length documentary, A Great Awakening, which is currently filming and scheduled for completion in 2009. The Louix Dor Dempriey Foundation, a non-profit educational organization, was established in 2007 to share Louixs teachings and humanitarian programs with the world. Louix lives at Prema Drala Ashram in Laguna Hills, California, and has ashrams and study groups around the world.

Opossums Are Nature's Best Mothers

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The next one is the best one.

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I cannot embed this one, but it's delightful.

Pogo Pictures

The cartoon character Pogo is an opossum.

Below are some covers of Pogo comic books.

There are a few more Pogo comic-book covers at this webage.

Our Opossum Released

On Monday, April 27, Cheryl phoned and informed me that her boss at the animal shelter had decided to release our opossum into the wild on Tuesday night. Cheryl and I arranged to meet on Tuesday evening after work so that Zosia and I could see our baby one last time.

Cheryl and her husband Alan drove to our home in their car, with our opossum in a cage in the back seat. Alan parked on the street and pulled the cage out and placed it onto the trunk. The cage was covered by a white blanket.

When Alan pulled the blanket away, Zosia and I were surprised to see how the opossum had grown and developed adult features. He had grown to more than twice the size he had been when we had seen him in October. Alan says the opossum now weighs about ten and a half pounds.

The opossum's face has turned rounded and completely white, which is common in adults. The face seems softer, and the nose seems to be less long and pointed.

We took a lot of photographs, but we got only three as a result. Our family camera has disappeared, so we borrowed our daughter Luka's camera that we did not know how to use properly. We took a lot of pictures through the cage's wire door, and the camera focused on the wire at the front of the cage and not on the opossum at the back of the cage. It's a good thing that Alan opened the door for a while, or else we would not have any photographs of the opossum at all.

I enjoyed talking with Alan, who has developed a real interest in his wife's work saving animals. He has learned a lot about opossums, because that species is one of Cheryl's specialties. Alan and Cheryl both are quite talkative and nice.

The third picture shows Zosia and me standing at the sides of the cage. You can see the opossum's shape vaguely in the shadows, so you have an idea of his size. He is the size of a dog.

Unfortunately, none of the photographs shows the opossum's tail, which was long and thick, like a rope.

Cheryl has been raising our opossum and another male opossum of about the same age. She has kept them in separate cages. They have not been able to see each other, but they could smell and hear each other, because the cages were adjacent.

After Cheryl showed our opossum to us, she gave both opossums to her boss, who then drove them out into the country and released them into a woods when the sky had turned dark. Opossums are mostly nocturnal animals.

Our opossum seemed healthy and fat, so we think he will be able to survive for quite a while even though he might have trouble finding food at first. We think that the spirit of the opossum's dead sister has continued to console and advise her little brother. We think he always will remember his opossum mother, and we hope that he will remember Zosia and me, who were his human parents for a couple of days.

Nearing Release

Cheryl, our local animal-control officer, has kept our opossum at the local animal shelter through the winter. Usually she would have released him at about the end of September, but he had grown too slowly.

She assures us that our opossum is still healthy and that she will bring him to visit us again before she releases him. Probably she will release him in April.

Zosia and I are happy that our opossume was allowed to remain at the shelter through the winter. Every time the weather became cold or snowy, we thought about our baby, and we were happy he was not trying to survive in the wild.

Zosia and I still are worried that our opossum will have difficulties learning how to survive in the wild. We hope he will find an older opossum who will show him the ways.

Cheryl has explained to us the animal-control officers' philosophy that opossums are born to live in the wild, not in captivity. Even if they suffer and die soon after they are released, it is better that they live even for short time as they were born to live.