No, my Did You Know? newsletter hasn’t moved to Fridays. Tomorrow morning, you’ll still receive the advertised and scheduled Did You Know What Happened to the Guam Snails? This is just an unexpected, bonus Did You Know? follow-up. Enjoy!
As the saying goes, timing is everything. Today at lunch I went out to run a few errands. My first stop was a local farmer’s market about four miles north of my home. As the highway started up the large hill—middle Tennessee has “hills” not “mountains” I was told when I first moved here—I saw a dead armadillo on the side of the road.
I did a double-take but kept driving. I purchased my tomatoes and squash and started back down the hill. As I passed the armadillo, I made a U-turn and pulled up behind it. Yes, I know it’s crazy, but I had to stop and take a photo as proof of what I was seeing.
A friend and native Tennessean has been telling me for years that armadillos have migrated north into Tennessee, but, until today, I’d never seen any proof of it. Well, turns out she was right. They are here . . . and are meeting the same fate as they do down south.
FYI . . . If you lived in Texas a few decades ago, you probably saw the Lone Star beer commercials starring an unseen giant armadillo who loved Lone Star beer and terrorized Lone Star beer delivery truck drivers. The commercials featured the truck drivers and their wrecked and empty vehicles after encounters with this big critter. To this day in Texas, it’s not unusual to see a dead armadillo on the side of the road holding a Lone Star beer.
What’s missing? A bottle or can of Lone Star beer clutched in his tiny claws.