Boy, will you regret looking here!

This is the moment right before my life changed, permanently scarred forever.  Just a little kid at a quiet wildlife park in Australia in 1969.  The kookaburras were screeching, the koalas were sleeping, the emus were loping, and the kangaroos were looking for food.

{Sniff} I was just a little kid.  I simply wanted to feed and pet a joey.  How was I to know that Mama 'Roos were mean old cows?  Right after this picture was taken, it's actually part of an old 8MM movie, Mama 'Roo comes up to poor little West Virginia hillbilly boy and whales on him.  She wasn't quite as cute and playful as Hoppity:

 And she had a right hook that slashed my forehead (or at least that's how I want to remember it).

No one messes with one's baby, and that includes Dolores Fleming's baby.  Using her best 1960's psychedelic purse (think something like this:

), Dolores went after that 'Roo Cow, swinging the purse like a a rodeo cowboy ready to lasso a bull.  Mama 'Roo grabbed the purse and the mamas were in a tug of a war while the Papa (who knows where Papa 'Roo was at the time, probably drinking a Foster's down at the local pub with his mates) finally set down his camera to save his family.

Roo took off, the hero of our story suffered only a minor scratch, and the story lives on in folklore.

But I am alright now, thanks for asking.

P.S. Be the first SMC faculty member to email me (work email, not website email) with the subject line "The Kangaroo Should Have Hit You Again" and win an Amazon gift card.  Offer only good for current SMC faculty (adjunct or full-time).