Gopher Away!

Photoby Alex Horvath/The Californian

I cracked up when I saw this picture on the front page of the paper today. Look at those teeth! Scary. The title “Gophers Gone Wild” is pretty funny too. It reminded me of own family's battles with the Mighty Gopher.

The house I grew up in shared a fence with Thompson Jr. High. All I had to do was hop the fence, and cross the field and I was in school. Of course if I did that I risked being grounded for a month. My dad didn’t want us climbing the fence for some reason I never understood. Anyway, very frequently the gophers that ran rampant at Thompson Jr. High ended up in our back yard and all hell would break loose. I seem to remember my brother sticking a hose down one of the holes to try and flush them out, but I may be making that up.

What I know for sure is that my family fought those gophers for real. They even got rid of my dogs one day while I was at school because they were digging up they yard trying to get to the gophers. The backyard looked like a battle field. I hated those little suckers.

I read the article about the gopher infestation at CSUB and the comment from the professor who said the gophers are “benefiting from our largess” and I couldn’t help but think, “Hey! I don’t have a large ass!” but then I realized I read it wrong. According to that dude gophers may seem like a pest but really they help us by tilling the soil and allowing for deeper water penetration. Tell that to my dad.

I can't help but wonder how long Alex had to hang around the gopher hole to get that picture.