Stewing about Black Squirrels

When I heard about the opening of Tree City Coffee & Pastry I had to laugh. Not that I think it is a bad business in any way, because indeed first reports are that it is a really cool place with great products. What made me laugh was the realization that we had yet another business with a squirrel or a tree in its name.

I have been musing about this phenomenon for many years, so when I saw a Facebook request that I “Like” Tree City Coffee, the irony hit me. I was sitting on my mom's porch in the Adirondacks, a great deal more than 500 miles from Kent, and I had just been watching – you guessed it- two black black squirrels fight over a few vagrant sunflower seeds.

You see, neither black squirrels nor tree cities are unique to Kent. As far as black squirrels go, they can be found in many a forest on and off college campuses throughout the Great Lakes region stretching as far as Minnesota, Ontario, Illinois, Connecticut and England. They also have sizable colonies established in the Quad Cities of Iowa and Illinois. They have been introduced to a variety of other cities, including Washington, D.C.; Marysville, Kansas; Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, and Westfield, Massachusetts. (There is a Wikipedia article that describes many other places as well.)

Tree Cities, of course, abound throughout the nation, especially due to the Tree City USA program run by the Arbor Day Foundation. There are more than 3,400 Tree Cities in the USA, with more being added all the time. More than 1/3 of the population of the country lives in a “Tree City.”  Of course we in Kent claim to be the “original tree city”, because we are the birthplace of Davey Tree Expert Company, one of the worlds largest tree care and urban environmental consultants in the world. 

I recently was informed that Oberlin, Ohio, is becoming quite famous for its white squirrels, which are slightly more rare than the black ones. I have not confirmed whether they have white squirrel bumper stickers, acorn alleys or “Arctic Squirrel Ice Cream” yet, so there may be a business opportunity for some of our squirrel-oriented businesses! 

Not being in the retail business, I don't want to make too much fun of my friends' attempts to come up with creative and unique business names and gift opportunities.  I did consider naming my architecture firm “Black Squirrel Architects” but figured I couldn't make very large commissions on buildings less than 4 square feet in area!

I recently observed the birthday of a dearly departed friend who was once the proprietor of Black Squirrel Books, an online rare and used book store, and have fond memories of watching him, a transplant to Kent like myself, try to make his business fit into the unique culture of our town.

It has been interesting to watch the emergence of the cult of the black squirrel, beginning in the humble abode of McKay Bricker Framing as a white bumper sticker with our iconic squirrel dashing off to find its next … date, nut or business opportunity. It brings a smile to my face to even see the stickers on cars far from home, even as far away as Ravenna!

Now that Ron Burbick has named a place Acorn Alley and had the nerve to commission sci-fi  movie-sized rodents, I fear it will be hard to slow down the momentum. I can understand Black Squirrel Beer, Books, Music, and the like, but what we need, especially in the light of our burgeoning Local Food movement, is Black Squirrel Stew. I can imagine a Black Squirrel Cafe serving that along with a side of Flash Flambe and Zippy Strudel. Rodent Roast, AKA Black Squirrel Arabica, would be the logical way to finish up a uniquely Kent dinner after, of course, completing the Black Squirrel Adventure Triathlon or running the Black Squirrel 5K.

All of this is fascinating and amusing and, in a way, quite appropriate for a town that 20 years ago spoke loud and clear against a shopping mall that would further threaten the uniqueness of our place along with the ecology of our beloved Cooperrider Bog. The black squirrel, a transplant like our bog from southern Canada, has replaced the bog as a symbol of the singular character of our place.

The black squirrel and tree city of course go together quite well, and are together a kind of a sustainability indicator that we can add to our "first in the state" sustainabiilty goals.

"That Black squirrels should live in every city precinct" would be a unique way for us to say that we have planted trees that bear food for man and beast, providing shade, reducing the urban heat island effect and, of course, providing seasonal delight and homes for birds. Thought about this way, our not-so-unique squirrel can once again take a leadership role in uniting town and gown. Yes, a rodent can join the chimeny swift in representing a great place to learn, live and laugh. A lot could be made of nuts, random running from place to place and burying things, but a warrior in the fight against anthropoligic climate change; who knew?

It has been fun to watch the momentum build for the black squirrel and for the downtown in the last 20 years. Through an interesting combination of perspectives,  us boosters of Kent have convinced enough people that the downtown is the heart of our community and only in creating a low-energy, low-carbon,  compact and walkable city center can the ecological vision of our community begin to flower to its completion. What we have now is a good start, but if we truly are "nuts about Kent," we still have much work to do.

One of the clues that we have been successful will be when we have completed our downtown and people can live and walk and enjoy seeing black squirrels on the street. As of now, we have been preoccupied with parking spaces and have forgotten to make room for real trees with real shade and nuts for the squirrels (and us) to eat. Perhaps in the meantime we will need to make squirrel tunnels along the esplanade so that the squirrels can visit their iconic plastic namesakes in what some are calling our "slick new downtown?"

As there is much interest in developing the open spaces of greater Kent we need to upgrade our cooperation with our neighbors and develop a conservation master plan as powerful as our downtown master plan. To do so, we will need to enlist our black squirrel icon and dust off our old friend bog to inform us of our goals. Creating jobs and increasing the tax base are good things, but only in the context of a long term vision of conserving the place we have inherited and protecting the climate. Conserving more land around the bog and developing industry that does not contribute to climate change ought to be at the top of our list of priorities.  

While as an icon for Kent, the Black Squirrel works pretty well, but ultimately, the bog is even better. The bog is ancient, and our civilization but a blink of an eye. The bog provides us a constant in an ever-changing world, a place of an inexplicable peace, a peace that can only come in the face of something that we cannot build or easily put on a bumper sticker.