King Herman

I was pulling into the parking lot at work on Friday when I noticed a new resident.

The lot I park in adjoins three to four acres of rolling lawn. Furtive movement in the middle of that lawn fell just within the outer range of my peripheral vision. I turned my head to the right but saw nothing. Scanning back to the left, I still came up empty.

I was about to write the movement off to my imagination when the groundhog rose up on his hindquarters. If ever there was a granddaddy groundhog, this was him. Easily the size of a small dog, his loose skin fell about him like the folds of a kingly robe.

Given that I work on the Herman Holloway campus, I immediately dubbed the groundhog King Herman.

I watched as King Herman surveyed the three acres that made up his kingdom. Herman's head ratcheted at an inch at a time, rather like a battery operated wall clock with a jumpy second hand. Herman missed not a single bird pecking for breakfast nor a single car skirting his kingdom.

All of a sudden, in an impossibly quick motion, King Herman disappeared from view and I was left looking at an empty rolling lawn.