The Backyard Zoo

by Jim Dunlap

"Catfish"

I jokingly tell people that the very moment I feel that I have seen everything come through the doors of the Living Materials Center I will retire, stay home, and learn to knit. Well last week when I opened a casket-sized cooler sitting just inside the back door that joke passed through my mind.

The family, dad and a great number of children either his or half the neighborhood's, told me right away his name was Rusty. The cooler, designed to hold cases not six-packs, contained no water and was filled side to side, end to end with Rusty, the twenty-six pound yellow catfish. We learned that Rusty had been in the cooler for hours and therefore was gasping for breath. He went immediately into Amos the alligator's tank.

Alas and alack, Rusty was deprived of oxygen-supplying water for much too long.

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