LETTERS FROM HOME: NIXON, HANK AND THINGS THAT CAN KILL SQUIRRELS

May 8, 1997

Dear Patty,

Hank and Lucy brought a dead squirrel to the back door this morning. Its small body was still limp, and blood was on its nose. Probably didn't have a heart attack or die of whatever natural causes squirrels succumb to.

The dogs are always chasing them in the backyard but until now the squirrels have been smarter and faster.

Death isn't one of DC's favorite facts of life. She laid the squirrel on a plastic bag next to the garbage can in the hope that maybe it was just playing possum, would arise to gather acorns another day once the predators were gone.

Much as DC wanted to believe the squirrel tripped and fell out of a tree, breaking its neck, we know our beloved pets are the killers. No bug lives within Lucy's sight, and I suspect Hank notched the squirrel. The little wimp's quite fearsome around anything and anyone small enough to give him delusions of dominance.

Carla the dog trainer warned us that letting the puppies run around the backyard without supervision was asking for trouble. They've become emboldened by the false sense of fenced-in security, challenging every person and animal that happens by. They're the 90-pound weakling in a cartoon who makes faces at the bully on the other side of the closed window. If one of those dogs actually got inside the fence, Hank would run and hide unless he had no choice but to fight.

People can be that way too, snarling at others only as long as they think it's safe. Otherwise playing the nice guy. Passive aggression is a coping behavior learned in childhood to avoid confrontation with people you think are more powerful. At its heart is the fear of anger. Anger feels unsafe.

Passive aggressive people are the soul of ambiguity, the simultaneous urge to be independent and dependent. The passive aggressive man -- and most passive aggressive people are men -- pulls you close but pushes you away when you get too close.

Richard Nixon was classically passive aggressive, a man whose brilliance lay in his ability to manipulate behind the scenes. He portrayed himself as the unjustly besieged innocent, when he knew better and the tapes proved otherwise. Nixon was neither as good as he wanted to be nor as bad as he feared he was.

That describes a lot of people, I guess.

I know this from the book I've been reading, "Living with the Passive-Aggressive Man." I got the book after beginning to suspect that DC might be one of those women the book was written for.

Being angry is the hardest thing for me. Expressing anger is torture. But anger and every other emotion will find a way to be expressed.

Unfortunately for your partner, that can manifest as behavior that can seem puzzling. One minute you're lovey-dovey, the next you're distant as a star.

One minute you're licking someone's hand, the next you're biting it.

Naturally, dogs will kill squirrels and rabbits and whatever else they can catch. Lucy's perfectly normal, but I don't need a pet psychologist to know Hank is a kindred spirit.

Unfortunately, the squirrel was no phoenix. I double-checked.

Love, Sam

~Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.