One of the hidden tools of saving beavers took me a while to understand. It used to be that I would rankle every time the infamous beaver pun was repeated, and bristle at the endless comments at the news stories. (In case you didn’t speak english in 7th grade or have never visited this planet before, I will clarify that I am referring to the fact that the word ‘beaver’ in slang usage is a reference for vagina) (Not sure about the history of that and would love to trace it back to the fur trappers or farther but that’s a post for another day.) So remarks about saving the beaver, helping the beaver, or leaving the beaver in a mural produce an echo-snigger far and wee.
My heart softened a little to this outrage when I was asked to help the John Muir Association take distinguished actor Lee Stetson around the beaver habitat one night. He was doing the conservation awards the next night and was staying in town. Lee is the actor who played John Muir in Ken Burns important national park’s documentary, and many many other places for the best part of 25 years. He is as spry as the real thing but he must be pushing 70. We trotted back and forth along the creeks looking for our quarry and saw a raccoon swimming but never what we sought. In the end we called it a night and went back home without a sighting.
The next night was the awards, and Lee’s impersonation of Muir was so dramatic and inspiring I cried through most of it. Afterwards I thanked him for his talent and for helping Muir come to life. He hugged me and said that he had a great time the night before, but that “his wife had been very upset to learn that he had been out all night chasing beaver”,
Ba-dum-dum.
For the first time, cosidering the source, that remark made me smile, and I said, “I guess no matter how grown up you get that joke is still irresistable, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” he laughed stroking his beard with pleasure. “Yes, it is.”
Beavers are serious business, and worth saving and worth fighting for for all the wildlife and watershed reasons we discuss every day, but let’s face it: People laugh at beaver jokes. They just DO. The truth is that Martinez beaver story would never have gotten the press it did if it weren’t for the titilation factor – the story just sounds funny. And in this particular case, forcing an artist to remove a beaver because it doesn’t belong next to the famous Marilyn-Monroe-seducing Joe Dimaggio cracks people up. They aren’t laughing in Chicago because Martinez spent money on sheetpile it didn’t need, or because the people rose up and made the city listen – they’re laughing because our director of public works is basically saying “i don’t hate beaver – I’m as straight as the next man.”
This morning there was a long discussion on the SNOPES messages board, of all places, about this very topic, but I’m pretty sure this radio program out of Chicago enjoys it the most.
Would it be a terrible thing if the powers that be in Martinez were made more cautious by the likelihood of ridicule for the any decision they made about the beavers before they committed it to paper? I don’t think so. At this rate thinking twice might improve their results twofold. I’m reminded of the immortal words of Mahatma Ghandi
“First they Ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
