Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Ruth

Grandpa Dahlenburg shared with me this story the summer of 2006. It’s a typical “Dahlenburg” story on so many exciting levels, and also hints at the nature of the relationship of Charles and Ruth Dahlenburg.

“Did you hear about our kangaroo?” begins Charles Dahlenburg.

“I was sitting on the porch a few weeks ago, when I looked out the window and saw something moving around outside in the yard. When I got a better look at it, do you know what I saw? A kangaroo! There, outside in our yard! It was standing there at the edge of the woods, looking around.

“Of course I called for Ruth (“Ruth!”) to come see it before the animal ran away. But by the time she got to the porch, the kangaroo had disappeared into the woods.”

Grandpa then describes to Ruth what he thinks he saw: An animal, about the size of a dog, sitting upright, with tiny front legs, a long stiff tail, and a head like a mouse, only without whiskers.

“What size was this thing?” Grandma Dahlenburg asks, not really believing his story but pressing him for details. To see if the story holds up to cross-examination.

“Well, the size of a small dog,” Grandpa answers. “Like a terrier, or even a puppy.”

“Oh Charles,” she says. “That wouldn’t be a kangaroo; that sounds more like a wallaby. A wallaby is like a kangaroo, only smaller. And besides, there aren’t any around here. It was probably a badger or something.”

“No Ruth, not a badger: a kangaroo!”

“Wallaby!” Ruth said, proud to correct Charles about miniscule details, as always.

A few days went by, and Grandpa again found himself sitting on the porch, alone. When all of the sudden, that same animal appeared.

“Ruth! Come here quick! It’s the kangaroo.”

“I’m coming,” said Ruth, racing to the porch. “But quit calling it a kangaroo. You mean wallaby! Not that you see one, anyway.”

Sure enough, by the time Ruth got to the porch, the animal had vanished.

“Kangaroo,” reports Charles.

“Wallaby,” retorts Ruth, though she didn’t see whatever-it-was, anyway.

This goes on for another week or so, with Grandpa Dahlenburg being the only person to see it:

“Ruth! The kangaroo!” Grandpa would proclaim.

And Grandma Ruth would always being in the basement, or otherwise preoccupied, so she was conveniently never around to see whatever-it-was that Grandpa was seeing.

“No kangaroo; wallaby!” she would snap, as it was her own way of telling Grandpa she thought he was making the whole thing up, anyway.

Charles would tell the tale of the lawn kanagroo with others, but Ruth always would interrupt him mid-story to correct her husband:

Charles: “And as I was saying, Margot, this kangaroo . . . ”

Ruth from the next room: “Wallaby!”

Charles: "Katie, I want to tell you about a kangaroo . . ."

Ruth: "WALLABY! . . ."

On it went. Grandpa was determined to have someone else see the animal, besides himself. And if nobody could see it, he would at least talk about it.

Finally, one day, the animal appeared before Charles again, and of course Ruth wasn’t around to see it. So instead, Charles this time got on the telephone to a neighbor:

“Yes, this is Charles Dahlenburg next door. A kangaroo in my front yard! Look out your window! Do you see it? Kangaroo! Kangaroo!”

“My God, Charles,” the neighbor said slowly. “That’s not a kangaroo . . . it's a WALLABY!”


Epilogue: It was, in fact, a wallaby that Grandpa Dahlenburg saw, after all. Apparently, it is well known that owners of exotic animals in Northern Kentucky often use Devou Park as the place to abandon their pets once the animal has grown too cumbersome to care for. Rather than face state and federal criminal action for owning an exotic species, these owners ditch their pets in the woods near the park. On this occasion, it was later determined that an owner had done such a thing with a wallaby; the one that grandpa saw. The wallaby was later recovered by authorities, and now lives on only in this story.