Craig’s Eggs Week 5; Licensed to kill gophers

What is the University of Minnesota’s academic forte? It’s not Engineering or Logistics. If it was they would know how to build a stadium on campus instead of 30 miles away so the largest student body in the United States can attend football games. Pretty novel idea. Maybe that’s why they average 47,000 fans per game and are 9th out of 11 in the Big Ten for attendance

Sure, it’s a big state and has 1,000 lakes that make getting to a football game difficult. They have snow too that can impede travel, hence the dome. It is kind of un-American in ritual. Look at Green Bay. The cheeseheads understand the prime mortal nature of football and will sit through a game shirtless in a blizzard – whereas these fat lemmings can’t make it to the game.

I recant. That’s not fair to call Gophers lemmings. At least lemmings travel en masse “somewhere” when it’s time to be somewhere – at game time. Who’s smarter now? Tough call.
Think of the mascot, the Golden Gopher. I know it’s not original, like a poisonous nut only squirrels can eat. There’s an identity problem here though. What is a Gopher, Groundhog, Woodchuck or whatever the heck you want to call it? Below, the many definitions:
gopher

noun
1. a zealously energetic person (especially a salesman) [syn: goffer]

2. a native or resident of Minnesota [syn: Minnesotan]

3. any of various terrestrial burrowing rodents of Old and New Worlds; often destroy crops [syn: ground squirrel]

4. burrowing rodent of the family Geomyidae having large external cheek pouches; of Central America and southwestern North America

5. burrowing edible land tortoise of southeastern North America [syn: gopher tortoise]

See where the confusion comes in? I know a gopher as a cute, fuzzy, dumb animal that we count by the roadside sunning themselves as trucks run them over. Awww. The weatherman gopher, Punxsatawney Phil has his own web site
.
Farmers as golf greens keepers despise them and are viewed as a “burrowing” menace that is unendingly annoying, like the guest that wouldn’t leave your digs — the slovenly stoner that camps in your beanbag chair, watches your TV and eats everything in your frig including the condiments – not someone especially “energetic.” Quite the opposite.

Go to the web and Google “Gopher” and you’ll find 1,067 ways to eradicate these varmints. Try poison pellets, smoke, high frequency, drowning, electrocution, firearms. Name it. The worse part is that they have few predators and breed like rabbits. They’re not really that cute either like Floppsy, Mopsy, Peter – oh, and Fat-ass!

The little bastards took over Port Columbus and were chewing all the wiring for aviation telecommunications and were tunneling under million-dollar runways. The little cherubs had the Columbus City Council stymied.

To make matters worse, some people with pony-tails, pop-bottle glasses and fanny packs called the media and the scene was teaming with newsmen. Seems the rednecks that City Council hired to dispose of the gophers were being inhumane. Apparently, travelers on planes could look out their windows to witness the Earp brothers’ unloading their shotguns at will.

After much debate, Columbus found their Pied Piper of Hamlin, a snake oil salesman named Mr. Haney. His solution was to use a leaf truck where he would insert the 10-inch diameter vacuum nozzle down a hole, turn it on and a jillion pounds per square inch sucked them out like a dust mite out of your carpet. That vacuum contraption was Dr. Suess-like, brilliantly obvious and diabolical and almost as unsportsmanlike as fishing with hand grenades or hunting deer with LAWs rockets.

Council considered this humane. Sure, they took the leaf grinder off the back, but can you imagine the “Suuuuuuck.. vooooop… thud” as they hit pay dirt – or the steel wall of the truck traveling at a jillion miles per hour? When asked why he had the gopher removal business, Mr. Haney’s reply was, “Good pay and all you can eat.”(see recipe).

What might be even more inhumane will be our thrashing of the Gophers tomorrow winning 49 to 10. Speed kills on astro-turf and the Buckeyes have plenty of it.

Gopher Pie

1 Gopher, skinned and cleaned
1/4 cup onion
1/4 cup green pepper
1/2 tbsp minced parsley
1 tbsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
4 1/2 tbsp. flour
3 cups broth

Cut Gopher into 2 or 3 pieces. Boil for 1 hour. Remove meat from bones in large pieces. Add onion, green pepper, parsley, salt, pepper, and flour to the broth and stir until it thickens. If the broth does not measure 3 cups, add water. Add the meat to the broth mixture and stir thoroughly. Pour into baking dish. Roll only enough to make it fit the dish. Place dough on top of meat, put in a hot oven (400 degrees F.) and bake 30 to 40 minutes or until dough is browned. Serves 6-8.