My dad is an easy-going fellow, a lover of peace, except when it comes to his garden.  One summer, a groundhog moved into our yard.  Each morning, my father awoke to find the remnants a groundhog feast: nibbled bits of tomatoes, cucumbers and beans. When he mentioned this varmint problem to friends, they came up with various schemes.

            Someone told him to scatter broken glass along the edge of the garden and around the groundhog hole. Unfortunately, our clothesline ran between those two areas, which meant my mom had to do a lot of fancy footwork as she hung laundry out to dry.  What’s more, broken glass did not in any way deter the voracious beast.

            Not one to give up easily, my dad asked his pinochle buddies for ideas. One guy suggested running a water hose into the hole.  Flooding did not work.  Another man proposed gassing the pest. Intuitively, my dad knew my mother would not approve of this method.  So, on a Sunday afternoon when Mom was off at the opera, Dad drove his tractor to the hole, connected crinkly black tubing to the exhaust pipe, and then snaked the tube as far down as he could.  He switched on the engine and waited hopefully.  Well, it turned out that groundhog homes have multiple entrances.  Consequently, all my dad managed to accomplish was to lower the air quality in our neighborhood.  To make matters worse, fumes did not spoil the groundhog’s appetite.  That night, the rapacious animal made a tasty dinner of the baby pole beans.

            Stymied and desperate, my father got advice from the town lunatic; at least that’s how my mom and I think of the man.  This guy actually suggested explosives. So on Tuesday morning, when my mother was out food shopping with Grandma and Great Aunt Angie, Dad poured gasoline into the groundhog hole.  Then, he soaked a thin cotton rope with gas and dropped it into the opening.

            My father tried to light one end of the fuse, but it kept flickering out.  So, he poured more gas on the rope.  Then, my dad dropped a match on the far end and ran for cover.  Within seconds, flames ripped down the fuse and straight into the hole.  An explosion sent fire several feet into the branches of a cedar tree which immediately ignited. 

My father hadn’t put away the hose since the water fiasco.  So, after a while (and most importantly for him, before my mother got home), my dad was able to douse the flames.

            And the groundhog?  All that stress made him head for comfort food.  That evening, he ate through the plum tomatoes, taking a large bite out of each one.

            Ultimately, my father faced up to the sad truth that he’d been a victim of Bad Groundhog Advice.  He returned to his peace-loving ways.  All-out war was never in his nature anyway.  He decided that sometimes you need to shift your perspective in order to cope with life’s stubborn problems. Now, when asked about that fat furry brown creature rooting around his garden, my father says, “Oh him?  He’s my pet groundhog.”