My family's best urban wildlife adventure took place on Labor Day 1996. We were about to set out on our annual holiday picnic when a neighborhood child came banging on the back door, yelling "Ann, come quick! There's a lizard in the street!" I grabbed my kitty-cat oven mitts for protection and followed her, thinking "salamander". Imagine my surprise to find a 3-1/2 foot iguana vogueing along the curb. Well, I couldn't exactly leave it/him there, so I grabbed him up with the oven mitts and put him in a big aquarium tank left from a previous "wildlife adventure." As I recall, it was election season (isn't it always?) and some wiseacre suggested naming the critter "Larry Sawyer" after a rival school board candidate, but son Andy prevailed, naming him "Felix". Felix lived with us for 6 years, got blessed several times at Basilica of St. Mary's Blessing of the Animals - once as pet-of-the-year, appeared on the front page of the Strib Metro section in a nice color photo (he was green), and went to his eternal rest in PineCone Cemetery (under the big blue spruce in the front yard) last year with flowers and a nice eulogy.
Ann Berget
Kingfield
