The Wisdom of Baby Cougars

Remember this: You never know when you will come across a thing at a distance, then that thing appears on your doorstep.

 

I was three years out of high school and attending the local university when one day I saw something on my drive home. There was a fireworks store the owner wanted to develop into a roadside zoo. I never stopped to view or inquire because the owner of the store had a bad reputation and in constant trouble with the law.

I looked over and saw a cougar with a logging chain attached to its neck, wrapped in a water hose spewing water. I thought to myself that scene looked very out-of-place and wrong. I wondered why the store owner was even allowed to have a roadside attraction less than fifty feet from a major highway with nothing more than a dog kennel fence and a chain holding it in. I cringed and moved along.

I don’t remember if I called someone because it was so long ago. Later, I would learn through the ever-active community grapevine that one of the tigers had escaped. It was hunted down and shot. I highlight community grapevine here but several people seemed to be aware of this right before the store owner and his son were charged with drug sales and trafficking.

Several weeks later a blonde man with curly hair came to our house. I thought he looked like some kind of Greek demi-god. I don’t remember his name. In tow, he brought baby cougars in the house. I was called into the kitchen and across the floor walked these three baby cougars. I asked how he came to have possession of these baby cougars.

The store owners were on the cusp of being busted and gave them away to whoever would take them. I can’t remember if this was one of those moments where the cubs were passed on to someone who was administering temporary care until a more suitable arrangement could be found. I don’t think this was the case. The man wanted to pass them on to my family but my parents were against this. The cubs were orphaned, removed from the wild at the onset of life, and as they grew bigger the financial care and maintenance would increase. The anxiety of potential escape and the responsibility of someone getting hurt loomed on the horizon.

These babies deserved to be put into a rehabilitation and release center. The only wild they knew was the concrete back lot of a fireworks store.

Years later, I asked my parents did they know what became of the cubs. Two of the cubs died from distemper. The third the man kept and named it Baby. I was told when the cub was big enough to be a threat to his toddlers he drove to North Carolina and released it in the late 90s. I do not know if someone shot the animal, it moved on to another state, or if it died through disease or misadventure. I was a teenager, what did I know?

I look back on this as one of those moments when the universe opens up and things land in your lap. I find it interesting one of the cubs crawled in my lap, put its paw on my chest then tapped me on my cheek. I knew these were wild animals and not pets. No matter what, all babies are beautiful unless you have no heart at all. This is the case with some people. There are hunters who chose to hunt these animals and kill them as part of their tick list. I am not one of those people and hope never to be one. I don’t fault hunters who do but this is not part of my ethos.

This is one of those times where I will write something and show you a picture to the truth of it. There are probably people with better stories but I tried to see what this could be applied to.

The tragedy of this story was the mother coming into the possession of drug dealers and the subsequent birth of her babies, whom were given away like hand-me-down clothes.

Here you had intentionally orphaned cubs taken from their mother, cheated of a natural life in the wild, shuttled back and forth unvaccinated to different people’s homes, and no guarantee to the outcome of their lives. Only one made it to adulthood, unceremoniously released, and then found itself back at the same moment of having a life in question to the outcome. All the decisions made by people determined the outcome of this cub that was at the mercy of the decision-makers.

I thought of how this applied in my life. I will say now the reason for my relating this tale of woe is in the hopes that if a parent is reading this and your child becomes compromised do not be afraid to rectify a wrong done against your child or relative. They may have to live with a physical wound and scar the rest of their life. People deserve their dignity, self-respect, and the positive outlook that people will do right by them and not wrong them at every turn. Your children look to you for support when they don’t know what to do.

I will also say that if you think I am a loser you are entitled to your opinion but that doesn’t make it true.

As for companies, institutions, or just individuals, if you lead someone into a ditch and they get hurt, man up and do right by the person. Doing wrong by them will only make your issue seem more the blight if you think you are not going to have to come to terms with what you have done.

I was attending the local University paying my way through school when jobs and money would allow. For a long time I didn’t use student loans. To get the aid I had to disclose parts of my life to the financial aid office that was embarrassing to me along with being semi-homeless and having to drop all my classes due to pregnancy. Someone asked me about aborting my baby. I decided that wasn’t prudent for me and became the responsible one. Years later after my child was born I decided I could go back and work toward finishing my hours for my Biology degree.

This is the story people like to hear; single mother overcomes odds and gets a degree while single-handedly supporting the child or children because somehow she is superhuman and has special powers that other people can’t tap. The whole time she is drinking from the Kryptonite Sippy cup.

I was taking an ecology class and the requirement by the university was you had to sign a release or you couldn’t take the class. The class was a requirement for your degree so you were coerced into signing to get what you needed.

We went to this place called Forty Acre Rock because there was something special that bloomed near the pools and nowhere else. It could have been Table Rock because we went to different places.

Everything was fine until the professor decided she wanted us to go down this steep incline to see a water fall. Everyone started down the hill dubiously because it recently rained. We headed down the hill and I stepped on this one place that was covered with leaves and moss. I slipped and fell back on my leg. I slide down the incline and slammed into a boulder. The boulder stopped me but I broke my left leg and didn’t know it. I was sitting on my leg in shock and the professor came over and scowled at me. After much discussion over me, the decision was made to take the students on to see this small waterfall. I guess it didn’t occur to her after this that maybe the conditions were conducive to accidents.

I sat there and watched them walk off and leave me. The professor’s husband, the university librarian, a couple of students and another person were standing over me trying to figure out what to do with me. I tried to stand up at their encouragement but almost passed out again to tumble down the mountain. I relayed I couldn’t stand or walk. There was a male African-American student who tried to break a ruler and splint my leg but I had on my mud boots. This didn’t work. The only option I had was to crawl on my hands and knees up this hill. The others walked up ahead as I slowly made my way. When I got to the top of the hill they wanted me to walk to the school van but once again I almost passed out from the pain. Someone went to get the vehicle after I insisted I couldn’t do it. I told them the only way I was going to get to where the van was parked was if I crawled. They were going to make me crawl.

The same guy that tried to splint my leg started to look angry. He stood over me and then looked at the others and said, “You are not going to make her crawl one more inch.” He squatted on the ground like he was in a football line up but lower. He looked at me and said, “I want you to crawl up on my back.”

I told him I would try and once I got my leg still, crawled up on his back. This reminded me of the painting of the Good Samaritan. He carried me to the van and put me inside. I waited forty-five minutes to an hour for the professor and class to return. Once we were on the way, I wasn’t paying attention because I knew my leg was broken. The Professor spoke up after we were ten minutes past a hospital and asked me did I want them to turn around to go to the emergency room. I rolled my eyes because they weren’t going to stop and wait for me to sit in an emergency room for a cast application. I was eventually given a phone to call my parents who picked me up four hours or so later at the university.

What came next was not to be believed. I was stuck with the emergency room bill. The professor filed an accident form. I was almost fired from my job because I broke my leg outside of work during classes. I was ejected by the university and immediately barred from classes. This was after I was assured by the main office the institution would delay my last tuition installment because the accident impeded my ability to work my job.

I remember walking out of the Biology building on crutches, crying and completely devastated and betrayed. Here strangers were making the decisions affecting my life and I was at their dismissive mercy like a small wayward child.

The professor had a moment of conscience because she went and paid the money out her pocket to have me reinstated. I felt compelled to pay her back because everyone made me feel like it was my fault. My father was furious and after that did not pay another dime on my university fees. He saw this as a sign of weakness. I didn’t know what to do.  

The students in the class were telling me to quit and go home. One student went so far as to tell the professor I was a burden and getting a grade without doing any work because of my broken leg. It was humiliating. I said screw it and kept going. I even walked my crutches down into a swamp. The professor even encouraged that. I began to think the woman didn’t have common sense and developed this rank distrust of teachers and their lack of common sense regardless of degrees. I felt like if I didn’t go I would fail and the money to pay for the class would be wasted. I would be further behind on my hours and no closer to my degree. The rest of the ecology class I wished I were elsewhere.

I wanted to do the right thing but the right thing wasn’t done by me. I guess I should have sued them. I now walk with a limp on my left leg that will always remind me of the crawling, the begging, and the mistreatment. It will always remind me of the bad in a group of people but the redemption in one student of African-American descent. I saw him years later and thank him again.

I went back to school several times but I was resentful of the memory. I tried to overcome it. Several months ago, I called Francis Marion University and asked the head of the Biology department if she could waive the one class that I took and failed that was required. I failed that one class and I can own it too. I explained my situation. She said she would get back to me. A month or so later I called again. She said I could take it elsewhere. I told her I had no more money. She wasn’t very helpful.

I called the main office and told them the situation. The worker there told me I could not take the class elsewhere. I had to take it at FMU and she was misinforming me. I was irate to say the least. Once again, here I was at the mercy of strangers that could care less if they helped me and the only thing standing between me and my degree was one class. I couldn’t think of a worse punishment.

I thought back on the attitude of the professors. The attitude coming down the pipe was this: We are here to take your money and fail you. We are not in the business of giving students value for their money and education or above taking financial aid funds while giving you the worse learning experience in your life.

Here I realized the student is paying the university and enabling professors and administration to have a regular paycheck, yet the student is held in contempt and being mistreated. In varying degrees the students going to universities are being victimized by the institutions through false promises. First class educations are traded for inadequate teaching practices of professors and maltreatment by administration.

After students pour money into these institutions, you are treated like garbage that is set down by the curb for someone else to pick up. I call to mind the Chair on the Graham Norton Show.

When you read this you have to start coming to the realization this might be the reason we still refer to some countries as Third World toilets or developing countries. This might be why we have people cracked out on student loans with no degrees, working menial jobs or digging through the trash for a meal. Maybe this is why the smartest or the most savvy at cheating or cutting corners end up as soulless doctors doling out prescription meds to support pharmacies and getting kickbacks on those prescriptions; all while doing baseless diagnosis and sue-worthy malpractice cases. Maybe the attitude and practices of administration and professors in Higher Learning is hindering those people that could be on the cusp of discovering things that can make life on Earth more livable and sustainable. We as a planet are being screw out of the genius potential.

My bigger question is when did it become a real thing that a second rate professor, that can’t get employed at a major laboratory, get stuck at a university then decide one of his students isn’t worthy of a bright idea or discovery based on outdated tests from more than ten years ago?  My second question to that is what university puts its professors up to telling students, after they have foot more than $6000 in tuition while living off campus that they will be failed intentionally without providing a learning environment towards degree? If a professor doesn’t like teaching the students and finding achievement in watching students succeed through professor mentorship, maybe that professor needs to find another job.

The more I look at things the more I see this ever throbbing vein of people keeping silent at maltreatment for the greater good of their dreams, and the hope no one will punish or blackball then for raging against the wrongs put upon them. You are just being taken advantage of at your expense and on the government dime.

This is what I learned from the wisdom of baby cougars. You are one among many that is born into this world with no promises; not all make it. Some are harder to kill than others such as myself. The one that does survive and thrive has a limited time on this Earth. Tragedy can strike at the beginning, middle, or end of your life. If this occurs don’t cry about it. It is bound to happen. No one is spared this trauma. Along the way you might come across a person(s) who makes decisions that affect your life negatively or positively. Your dreams will be dismissed, blocked, or mangled yet you will and can go on without such a thing. Then again all your dreams and goals can be realized while others around you fall like burning angels from the sky. You might not like it but you will move forward hopefully with the positive energy inside of you. You will cry, hate, resent, and finally come to terms with things much like one does after a death. Grief will come and go but finally fade away. A path is a path, be it mineral, animal, or human. I am a firm believer in people getting their come-uppance when they mistreat people. You will be around to see this, if not, hopefully somewhere nice. No matter what, you believe there is something else around the corner even if there is not. You have to believe life will change even if you are still stuck in the same rut you were pushed or jumped into. Believe in the idea that someone will look down at you and say, “You will not crawl one more minute”, because there are people out there capable of this. It does happen. Not everyone wants to intentionally make you fail. Eventually you will have nothing to lose and they can take nothing from you because everything is already gone. This is when you reach the Devil’s Crossroads and fear no Death.

 

Written by: W Harley Bloodworth

 ~Courtesy of the AOFH~