My son Kevin found an old picture of a pet squirrel we had many years ago. It's amazing, the detail that is stored in our brains awaiting a trigger for recall.
I was working for ITT at the time. I had a top secret clearance with the military and had recently come off of the 465L Command & Control System for SAAC. It was during the cold war. There was a parking lot a bit away from the main building in Nutley, New Jersey. You had to follow a path through some woods to get to work.
It was Spring time. I heard rustling in the grass about 20 feet off the path. So, naturally, I walked over to see what was going on. I stood still and waited. After a few minutes, the rustling started again and a baby squirrel came toward me, climbed up my leg and started nursing on the pleat of my pants. I gently picked him up, took him back to the car and made a nest out of some rags in the back seat. I went to work, called Florence and I told her to get ready for a new member of the family for supper. I didn't tell her who it was.
Our three sons were in grade school at the time. Supper that night was a grand affair. The squirrel, now named Fuzzy, was completely tame.
He had his own plate but it seemed all he wanted was milk from an eye dropper. Everybody fell in love with him. He would hop on the table to each one of us, so we took turns feeding him.
Soon, he graduated to more substantial food. At breakfast, Fuzzy would hop from plate to plate, grab whatever was there cut up for him, sit holding the food in his front hands contentedly nibbling. He liked having his belly tickled, his head scratched and over all petting.
Problems developed after a few weeks. We found that wires to appliances were nibbled through... dangerous and a fire hazard. He made a nest on top of the kitchen cabinets from shredded paper towels but the outdoors beckoned.
I made a squirrel house in a tree near the back porch. Fuzzy was moved outside. He didn't like that and would climb the rear door screen. He still had supper privileges. The other squirrels in the area didn't like him much. We were his family.
One day, I looked out the rear window at the sand box the boys played in. There was fuzzy on his back, playing with a Tonka toy. I'm sorry I didn't get a picture of that.