November 1, 2004
Bats
A million or so bats share their place in the food chain along the Colorado River where it runs through Austin, TX. They live under a bridge and create a minor industry of bat hats and hand-held neon batons with which to shoo.
They come out every night at sundown and carpet-sweep the malingerers that drift just over the water’s surface and between the banks. It’s difficult to think of mosquitoes by the ton — or bats by the millions, for that matter — but that’s the way they do it down there.
We don’t function like that because we’re free to jigger the food chain in our own ways, buying with whimsy our enchiladas with chicken, beef, or cheese. But we could learn a thing or two from the bats. Collegiality. Purpose. Timing. Stewardship. Knowledge of and respect for our limits.
But not by driving like a bat out of hell on the interstates and scaring the daylights out of tourists trying to read the signs and keep between the curbs.