Opinion & Comment

Mountain tick visits Washington and meets other types of blood-suckers

APPALACHIAN NOTEBOOK - Steve Oden

One of the most famous introductory rhymes in poetry begins: “Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie, O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!” These are, of course, lines from “To a Mouse on Turning Up Her Nest with a Plough” by Scottish poet Robert Burns.

I recalled the poem when a different type of “wee beastie” made its presence known by crawling from my camera bag in the office of a United States congressman.

The tick trundled on its eight tiny legs up a chair, drawn toward the shapely ankle of a young but pretentious female staffer who seemed to care little about the issues affecting rural Appalachia of which my delegation had come to speak.

It was clear what she thought of us. Although we came from her boss’ home district, we probably seemed a motley crew of hillbillies, rednecks, and ridge-runners. A senior aide, she had declared herself a life-long resident of Washington, D.C., and furthermore a graduate student in foreign affairs with a career path aimed toward the State Department or CIA.

That we seemed more interested in USDA budget legislation than ambassador appointments mattered not at all to her. She was filling obligatory meet-the-stupid-constituent time because the congressman was “involved in important floor debates and votes.” Yeah, right. He was on a golf outing.

Amazing was the fact that I even became aware of the wee beastie hitch-hiker. I had just watched the legislative aid try to hide a furtive yawn as our group’s spokesman cited the need for continued funding of rural development efforts. It was plain the official audience with the congressman’s stand-in was going poorly when she didn’t even ask our pardon. We were wasting her valuable time, and she wanted to make sure we knew it.

Outside in the office vestibule, a trio of slickly dressed registered railroad lobbyists waited impatiently. Sleek fat cats, they made us Appalachian hayseeds look like plow mules in a pasture of racing thoroughbreds.

The tick kept crawling, while a devil and an angel rode my shoulders and argued. “He should tell the young lady that she’s fixing to have a tick on her leg,” said the angel. “She deserves to get bitten,” replied the devil. I was not going to get immediate help from my conscience.

How the tick happened to be in my camera bag was not a mystery. I’d been hiking the woods behind my house, looking for wild mushrooms and snapping photos of spring wild flowers the day before our trek to Capitol Hill. Ticks are part of life in Appalachia, like it or not. Either you spray down with a tick repellant before going into the woods and fields, or you pick the pesky critters off later. No big deal, unless you are an urbane city gal looking forward to a power lunch at the American Café in Union Station.

Having a blood-bloated tick attached to the skin above your panty hose waist line might permanently damage your credibility, not to mention being an embarrassment in the ladies’ room. I didn’t like the way the high-and-mighty congressional staffers treated us common folk, but decided to warn the young lady of the wee beastie.

I cleared my throat in preparation of explaining how an Appalachian tick had traveled to the hollowed halls of government when she jumped up and curtly declared, “Time’s up. Glad you came. Congressman Foghorn always welcomes visitors from home. Good-bye!”

She rushed us out the door. We had to squeeze past the railroad lobbyists, all men of expansive girth who couldn’t wait to get in the office to discuss their important business. One of them sniffed, as if he smelled something bad, when we passed. Another muttered under his breath. I speculated it was a deprecating observation about our group of farmers and rural leaders.

This convinced me that, if the tick needed a good feed, those guys were the perfect menu. One of the silver-haired power brokers sat in the very chair that the wee beastie had ascended.

I imagined the arachnid’s pleasure as it quested upward toward the pale and flabby skin above the railroad lobbyist’s sock… a parasite preying on another type of blood-sucker. The irony caused both my angel and devil to finally agree that I had done exactly the right thing.