Continuing the Crook County News Since 1884

This Side of the Pond

Notes from an Uprooted Englishwoman

I am filled with trepidation, dear reader, for in just over a week I shall meet the predator who haunted my childhood dreams. At Denver Zoo, I shall come face to face with a Siberian tiger.

The husband and I are taking a trip across the border in honor of my recent landmark birthday. Eddie Izzard, my favorite comedian, happens to be touring in June and so I grudgingly agreed to delay the celebrations.

As it would be silly to drive all that way for a single evening, we have been planning additional fun to keep me occupied. I have insisted on witnessing the dinosaur bones at the natural history museum, I’ve been given a list of potential eateries that would keep me fed for at least a month and I am determined we shall visit the zoo.

It is during this last part of my adventure that I will face up to the nightmares of my youth. Thanks to my mother and grandfather, you see, I grew up on Rudyard Kipling’s “Just So Stories” and “Jungle Book” and William Blake’s “The Tyger” (of which everyone knows the first verse: “Tyger tiger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”).

I was fascinated by these glorious creatures, but I had also fallen prey to a misunderstanding. As I played with my toys in the peaceful back yard, I would cast the occasional eye towards the back gate, over which I was certain would soon appear a tiger.

Nobody had told me – and why should anyone for a moment think to tell me? – that tigers do not live in the wild in England. I never once spoke of my belief – for why would I think to question it? – and fact sheets do not generally include a long list of the things that aren’t true about a topic alongside the more compact list of things that are.

To the best of my recall, it took a few years for me to get over that fear. Some time later, I of course chose to move to a place where there really could be a hungry feline in my back yard, which I feel proves my bravery and sense of adventure.

I’m not alone in my misunderstandings. When my brother was very little, my parents would enter his room each morning to find his copy of “Little Red Riding Hood” thrown in the trash can.

They fished it out and placed it back on the shelf, only to find it back in the can the next morning. Eventually, they figured out that my brother had developed a crippling fear of wolves.

Somehow I got the blame for this, though for the life of me I can’t remember any involvement. The family myth is that I attempted to regulate his less obedient behavior with the promise that the wolves would come and get him, even though they don’t live in the English countryside either.

I will deny this to my dying breath. I am innocent and have always been a lovely big sister who was in no way impatient or irritable. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

We may never know the truth of where my brother’s wolf fear comes from (because it absolutely has nothing to do with me), but I do know it lingered into adulthood. My little brother now has two small humans of his own and has been planning to bring them for a visit as soon as they’re old enough for the long flight.

My parents, my husband and my Wyoming family all know this state contains wolves, but we quietly failed to mention this lest it put him off his trip. Unfortunately, he stumbled across a documentary, and I woke the next morning to find a message awaiting me.

“Sister, you didn’t tell me there are wolves in Wyoming,” it said. Oh dear.

I quickly reassured him that, while this is indeed true, they are on the other side of the state. I explained that Wyoming is much bigger than he thinks it is and it takes as long to drive to the other side as it would take him to get to Scotland.

I then pointed out that a wolf would have to set off from Yellowstone long before he left England if it was going to have a chance of getting to the airport before his plane landed. There was a pause.

“Wait…wolves can drive?” he asked.

I was too far away to clip him round the ear, but I thought about it. He then asked if there were any other scary creatures he should be aware of and I reassured him that, while nature is considerably more bountiful here than he is used to, I haven’t seen a single one.

There might be lions (but not the gate-jumping kind) and there are bears in places he’ll never venture, I said. But the only thing I would really want him to watch out for would be snakes – and he’d be in good company there, as they are not popular guests at the Pridgeon residence.

Snakes are apparently also on his list of least preferred animals, so he asked for more information. I told him the difference between rattlers and bulls and how to react if you hear the telltale noise. I said he’d need to be careful, but we’ve never really had a problem up at the house because they mostly live in other parts of the county.

“Yeah, but can they drive?” he asked. I told him to behave himself, or the wolves would come and find him.