An armadillo of a tale from Papa Hop

“Grab him by the tail!” I heard Papa Hop say. Now I considered myself a strapping young lad and was proud that I could grip a handshake firmer than any boy my age. 

Papa Hop was my hero, and I would have leaped over tall buildings to do his bidding. We were are on the banks of Green’s Creek on a ranch near Dublin, Texas where I grew up. We were checking cattle and riding fence when we encountered this strange dinosaur looking creature in the bottoms and gave chase. He darted into a rocky crevice, and I had already piled off and was trying to catch this elusive prey when I received Papa Hop’s advice. I grabbed that tail, and the rodeo was on! 

I had a good grip and I planned to just pop it out and hold this creature up by the tail to show my prize, but this wild critter commenced to thrashing about and twisting until it broke my grip and escaped into the rocky crevice. 

Papa Hop was slapping his thigh and laughing, and the dogs were carrying on around me and dust was flying. I believe we could have tied a fence stretcher on to him and still not pulled him out of his hideaway! Well, I stood wide-eyed and a bit dejected when Papa Hop said, “You put up a good fight lad, but that Armadillo would have twisted his tail clean off before you could have caught him!” Then he turned and said, “C’mon, we got fence to look at.” That was not my last escapade with the Armadillo and of course none of the others turned out any better. 

Armadillos are not native to Texas and there are twenty or so species in South and Central America. We only have one in Texas, and it is known as the nine-banded armadillo. In the early 1850s they were known to be along the lower Rio Grande Valley and slowly pushed across South Texas and into the Hill Country somewhere around the early 1900s. They continued to move north and east until they were spread throughout Texas and into Oklahoma and Louisiana as early as the 1930s. 

They are not large animals, usually weighing in the neighborhood of fifteen pounds. They mate in late summer and early fall and in the spring give birth to identical quadruplets. They tend to root around where the ground is favorable in search of grubs, earthworms, and insects. They are a very adaptable animal but do not do well in extreme dry and extreme cold They often fall prey to the coyote and dog. 

They do have trouble crossing roads and often end up roadkill. There have been times that these road kills have been posed on their backs with a Lone Star beer bottle balanced in their grasp and the Armadillo was declared the official animal mascot of Texas in 1981 by executive decree. Individuals promoted armadillos as a Texas souvenir with Charles Apelt inventing an armadillo shell basket that he displayed at the 1902 New York World’s Fair. 

They are considered a game animal in Mexico and the residents of South Texas adopted the practice of eating armadillo and during the Great Depression, people referred to them as “Hoover hogs” because of a similarity to the taste of pork and because citizens held President Herbert Hoover responsible for the depression. 

The armadillo is also associated with leprosy because they have a very limited immunity to the disease. As a result, they are shipped worldwide to research facilities in search of treatments for leprosy. In the 1970s they became even more famous when an organization from San Angelo, Texas promoted armadillo racing which spread throughout North America and into Europe. So, there you have it in an armadillo shell! 

Papa Hop’s Legacy

“Grab ‘em by the tail!” I heard Papa Hop say,

My lariat rope had missed ‘em twice,

This action was the highlight of the day,

This critter would soon pay the price.

We rode out at daybreak Papa Hop an’ I,

Hearin’ a Red Tail hawk scream,

Crossin’ the creek we could see red in the sky,

An armadillo “crost the stream.

He’d hit it for a hole an’ started diggin’ in,

When I got his tail in my grip,

Dust was flyin’ an’ the dogs raisin’ a din,

When that scamp gave me the slip.

Seems the harder I gripped, the more he would twist,

‘Til I feard his tail would break off,

I worried that he might just break my wrist,

But that thought shore made me scoff!

But he just flat snatched his tail out of my hand,

An’ the dogs still givin’ him fits,

But he got in that hole where he made his stand,

The dogs barkin,’ an’ here I sits.

I figgered Papa Hop would hurrah me some,

But that just was not his way,

He smiled an’ said, “I bet you left his tail numb!”

An’ that’s all he had to say.

We rode on, just checkin’ for breaks in the fence,

Tryin’ to enjoy the ride,

He didn’t make me feel small, gave me confidence,

An’ I felt purty good inside.

He would never laugh or make you feel bad,

When a pat on the back would do,

We talked about God’s blessings an’ all that we had,

It made your spirit renew.

He’d say, “cowboys, like hats, require shapin,’  

One by God, the other by man,

You each make your mark, there’s no escapin,’

You leave a trace upon this land.”

Papa Hop had wisdom and he passed it to all,

Solid as rode o’er this sod,

It was his legacy given to big and to small,

A gift to the world from God.

Ol’ Jim Cathey

Pray for rain! Join us at First Baptist Marlin at 11 Sunday morning.

God bless each of you and God Bless America!