Common Folk: Squirrel's Best Friend, Rain, Wind Or Snow

BOSTON, MA — At first you might think he is hugging the large tree on the Boston Common closest to the State House, or perhaps measuring it. Then it might look like he's picking something from the bark. As it turns out, he is pushing peanuts into the crevices of the tree.

One by one he'll pull the peanuts from a plastic Roche Bros bag and place them into the crevices, spacing them evenly.

"Sometimes I make this sound," he says sucking air between his teeth and clicking his tongue in an uncanny imitation of a squirrel's chatter. "And they'll come right down."

The "they" in question are the squirrels living in this corner of the Boston Common.

But on this Wednesday evening there are no squirrels in sight as Harry the Squirrel Man makes his way around the tree and empties his bag.

"They won't come out when there's a concert on the Common, or a lot of kids, because they'll chase them," he says.

The Squirrel Man should know. He says for the past two years he's come out daily to the Common, riding his bike from Roxbury, stopping to pick up a bag of pistachios and a two bags of peanuts (with their shells) along the way, rain or shine to place the squirrel food. He goes through the ritual of placing the treats in the tree three times each day leaving a grave yard of shells pushed into the dirt beneath the tree.

"They know me now," he says. And he's got the pictures of them sitting on his lap munching on pistachios to prove it.

Harry was born just outside of Atlanta but came to the Commonwealth when he was about 6 years old with his mom, sister and two brothers. They rented a place in West Newton before the Mass Pike had made it through.

He remembers when the government took the land by eminent domain to make way for the Pike and Harry and his family moved on, he said. The street he grew up on? Hick Street is gone now, in its place the superhighway.

Shortly after he retired, he started making this trip to the Boston Common and talking to the squirrels his regular habit. It started on a whim. He'd sat under the tree and just randomly put a treat in the crevice of the tree one day and when the squirrels caught wind they were his new best friends.

Although he came close to owning a dog once, he has no pets at his small space in Roxbury.

So he delights in watching the squirrels scamper about, choosing whether to eat the nuts or to make their mark on them and bury them for later. He knows where the closest live and can point out where their "condos" are (the lucky who live in the hollow of the tree) and which ones have had to make a nest from sticks and leaves.

He doesn't name them and he only sees one lesson they might have for us.

"If they could teach us a lesson it might be how to stay warm in the winter," he says following it up with a chuckle and a twinkle of an eye.

When people ask him why he spends his money on the squirrels, he says he brushes them off. Feeding the squirrels and watching them is peaceful for him.

"No matter what my day is like, after I feed them I'm calm," he says.

He delivers his empty bag to the garbage bin nearby, says goodbye two regular (human friends) sitting on a bench nearby and with that he's off down the path headed back toward his bike.

"I'll be back out here tomorrow," he says.

Common Folk is a new Patch series that seeks to answer the question: Who are the everyday people who wander the Boston Common? Sign up to Boston Patch to meet them.

Previously:

Common Folk: Berklee's Marcela (And Ruffles) Find Their Way

Common Folk: Poor People's Campaign Camps Out Near State House

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Photos by Jenna Fisher/Patch.