Phantom Hampton: Recent Episodes
Kara Westerman
Welcome to Phantom Hampton Podcast: Stories From Where the Rest Of Us Live. We wire audio dispatches from the 99% living in a 1% neighborhood - true Hamptons tales!
Who can you call at 2:00 am if you need a raccoon driven across the Shinnecock Canal? Is your family of foxes mangy? Is a hedgehog eating you out of your zinnias? Do you have bats in your basement, swifts in your chimney, or have you seen an Osprey who has forgotten how to fly? If you can’t resort to killing your cousins, there is only one man for the job. The state has called him to task for refusing to kill any of the creatures he traps, but he stands firm. He doesn’t need the state license to run his business. He is run off his feet, literally, by repeat business from customers who care about what happens to their animal fellows. When he runs across humans with absolutely no compassion or respect for the animals who interfere with “their way of life,” it obviously upsets him deeply. He tells me the story of an irate man who demanded that Dell bring him the head of the raccoon so he could verify that it was dead, and of a man who accused him of trying to charge him twice for trapping the same raccoon, so he spraypainted it’s fur blue to identify him. I am fascinated by Dell and others who are called on to be the intermediaries in the ongoing struggle for space on an ever more populated Long Island, people who stand in between and do the translating from one species to another. My question is why humans specifically resist entering the realms of other consciousnesses, or resist even the idea that other species have consciousness, let alone souls? Why does it always seem to be those of us who are most afraid of ourselves, or perhaps most afraid of being animals ourselves, are the people who sit and make distinctions about what and who has value, and what to eradicate? It’s no small feat to imagine a world in which we share resources and protect each other’s values. The main engine under Dell is his undying curiosity, enthusiasm, and mostly imagination for the work he is involved in. He has a strong enough self to withstand the idea that all forms of life have consciousness and deserve respect. It seems to be all of a piece. It’s not just about human empathy or the lack of it I realize, but those of our species who don’t have the imagination to put themselves in another person’s shoes will not be able to imagine the fullness of an animal’s universe, or even further to imagine that this wild island and the earth need our protection and care.
Who can you call at 2:00 am if you need a raccoon driven across the Shinnecock Canal? Is your family of foxes mangy? Is a hedgehog eating you out of your zinnias? Do you have bats in your basement, swifts in your chimney, or have you seen an Osprey who has forgotten how to fly? If you can’t resort to killing your cousins, there is only one man for the job. When he runs across humans with absolutely no compassion or respect for the animals who interfere with “their way of life,” it obviously upsets him deeply. He tells me the story of an irate man who demanded that Dell bring him the head of the raccoon so he could verify that it was dead, and of a man who accused him of trying to charge him twice for trapping the same raccoon, so he spraypainted it’s fur blue to identify him. I am fascinated by Dell and others who are called on to be the intermediaries in the ongoing struggle for space on an ever more populated Long Island, people who stand in between and do the translating from one species to another. It’s no small feat to imagine a world in which we share resources and protect each other’s values. The main engine under Dell is his undying curiosity, enthusiasm, and mostly imagination for the work he is involved in. He has a strong enough self to withstand the idea that all forms of life have consciousness and deserve respect. It seems to be all of a piece. It’s not just about human empathy or the lack of it I realize, but those of our species who don’t have the imagination to put themselves in another person’s shoes will not be able to imagine the fullness of an animal’s universe, or even further to imagine that this wild island and the earth need our protection and care.