Worming isn't the pill you take to evict a tapeworm. Worming is the equivalent of fishing's catch-and-release—you find a worm in dire straits, catch it, and then release it where it'll have another chance for the good life.
There probably aren't a lot of wormermen or women around, but I bet I'm not the only one in the neighborhood. But worming is a sport that attracts the shy and reticent, folks who take care not to get caught in the act.
I first became interested in worms the summer I tried to become a big-time worm farmer. I'd filled six half-barrels with worm-pleasing soil and set about prodding up my seed crop with an electric prodder, but I never shocked up more worms than the kids needed to fish.
I didn't think much about worms again until a couple of weeks ago on an unusual morning when I awoke to the sound of falling rain, rain that just kept on coming down. If you're not yet eligible for Social Security, you're probably not aware that the norm here used to be that one month between April and July was the rainmaker month, and during that month it'd rain about 18 hours a day. I was a callow youth then, and I whined about it a lot, and, too, I was careless about what I wished for. I fear I helped bring about today's drought.
Anyway, on that rainy morning when I'd have gladly stayed home, Pearl, my Jack Russell, kept dogging me with her please-please-please stare. So I put on my Gold Mine rain garb, hopped on my bike and headed for the bike path.
Worms were stretched out everywhere. I had to be careful not to squish them since I keep my bike in the house. I slalomed around their strung-out bodies, and soon I started to empathize with them. What a cruel fate—to worm out of a flooded burrow to escape death by drowning only to die a horrible stretched-out desert death on a dried-out path.
So, I started worming. Probably not many of you will be called to worming, but if you're one of them, here are some tips if it ever again rains buckets and the bike path is strewn with worms at peril: First, don't touch the worm to save it—you'll only pinch it in two trying to grab hold. Find an old stalk the size of the straw in a Shirley Temple, and then select a drowning worm and barely nudge it with your stalk right at its middle. It'll instantly morph from strung-out spaghetti to a curled-up mass. If it doesn't curl up it's already drowned or nearly so—anyway, as close to being brain dead as a worm gets, and you shouldn't use extraordinary measures to try to revive it. The bike path's just one big triage place, and you'll soon become an expert at picking out the ones that can likely be saved.
When the worm's curled-up, slip your stalk under it and lift it up. It'll be too limp to slide off the stalk—a worm can't do anything but just hang there at your mercy while you carry it to safety, and safety isn't always easy to find. Don't tip your worm off at the edge of the path—a worm's IQ will probably have it wiggling right back to the path again. Choose a high clump of grass that'll keep it off the ground until its world dries out enough to head downside again. And don't hang around waiting to see how long that takes—it takes more time than you'll have alone there with your worm—someone's bound to come by, someone who can hardly wait to get to the Pio and tell about the weirdo he saw standing by the bike path, bent over and peering at the ground.
You'll develop your own routine. What I do is make a worm-check while I'm outbound and then do my Red Cross work on the way back. Sometimes it's frustrating. You might be coming up on a worm you aim to catch-and-release only to find a biker or a walker right there. Sometimes you just have to pass a worm by.
Don't feel embarrassed if you're called to worming. They're worth saving; worms are great soil conditioners—and they're protein burgers on the move: birds, skunks, rats, frogs and moles thrive on them. It's commendable work you'll do ... though intensely private.
Betty Bell
