Getting Squirrely in October

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By: Travis Naughton

October is National Squirrel Awareness Month. I know what you’re probably saying to yourself right now; “That sounds made up.” Well, isn’t every awareness month made up? To my knowledge, no one has ever stumbled upon a naturally occurring awareness month growing in the wild.

In this particular case, a man named Greg Bassett was at the Grand Canyon one day in 1995 when he saw a squirrel “motioning” at him. There is no official record of what type of motion took place, though some have speculated that either the rodent was using American Sign Language to tell the human to create an organization for the sole purpose of raising awareness of squirrels or it was simply cleaning itself. Nevertheless, when Greg returned to his home in Chicago, he founded the Squirrel Lovers Club, which set in motion a series of events that culminated in the creation of Squirrel Awareness Month.

Read full article in this week’s Journal…