I have a list of Life Goals that I review once or twice a year, sometimes checking off items that I’ve managed to accomplish, sometimes removing things that no longer appeal to me, but most often adding new, cool-sounding activities or events. Last night I spent a couple hours searching the Internet for other people’s to-do lists, worldwide travel guides, and the like. During my online travels, I stumbled upon a list of 100 Things to do Before You Die. Perfect!

So I started adding things to my list; the Nevada Burning Man Project, the Dia de los Muertos Festival in Mexico, the Cannes Film Festival, the Montana Testicle Festival, the International Dragon Boat Championships in China…

Wait a minute! The Montana Testicle Festival? What the hëll is that?! Naturally, I searched for and found the festival’s website. Well, of course, as the name implies, it’s a food festival — but involving 4,500 pounds of carefully prepared, beer-marinated, secret-recipe-breaded, deep-fried bull testicles. There’s also live music, lots of motorcycles, and a horseshoe tournament.

Photo © iStockPhoto.com / Slava Dusaleev

It’s motto being “No Ãsshølës Allowed”, the festival bills itself as an Adults-Only attraction:

• bûllshìt bingo — participants buy squares on a huge grid. In whichever square a large bull takes a dump, the person that bought it wins something.
• body painting
• a tricycle race — participants appear to be required to drink an unknown quantity of beer before racing along a dirt track wearing just their underwear.
• a wet T-shirt contest
• a hairy chest contest — not exactly weird, but certainly unusual.
• co-ed naked pool — unfortunately, sounds like the billiards type of pool, not a swimming pool.
• Bite the Ball Motorcycle Ride — motorcycle riders and their passengers attempt to bite into a hanging bull testicle while riding by.

OK, not exactly my cup of tea (except perhaps for the body painting and wet T-shirt contest), but I try to maintain an open mind about everything. The online gallery of photo albums over the years was the final clincher. I don’t mind a bit of public nudity (as long as it’s someone else’s, not my own, and preferably female), but I couldn’t stomach the idea of eating a plateful of deep-fried bull testicles in the shadow of a stage that reads “Show Me Your Nuts”, surrounded by flaccid, overweight, middle-aged bikers with hairy chests showing off their own smaller versions of the plate de jour.

I just hope it’s not spaghetti and meatballs for dinner tonight.

In California, ferrets are illegal. Despite volumes of convincing evidence that ferrets are not the menace that California suggests, lawmakers still have not budged from their position based on erroneous facts and figures. Are ferrets really the menace they are claimed to be?

Myth: Predators of Endangered Seabirds

Boyd Gibbons, Director of California Department of Fish and Game, in a letter written on March 25, 1994, claimed that “the state of Massachusetts has adopted a law (with) restrictions against ferrets because… wild ferrets deciminated [sic] a population of endangered Terns.”

Photo © 2005 Jenny Preece

Conversely, Thomas M. French, Assistant Director of the Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in a letter dated February 20, 1991, stated that “there has never been a recorded case of Tern predation by a ferret in Massachusetts… in fact, I have never heard of such a case anywhere in North America.”

Score: California – 0, Ferrets – 1

Myth: Predators of Waterfowl

Jack C. Parnell, Director of California Department of Fish and Game, in a memo from February 26, 1986, purported that “ferrets prey upon… waterfowl.”

However, The United States Department of the Interior stated on February 19, 1997, that “in the 30-year history of research conducted by Northern Prairie Science Center on nesting waterfowl, domestic ferrets have never been identified or considered as a predator of duck nests.” Furthermore, the Delta Waterfowl Foundation, said in a letter dated February 11, 1997, “(we have) never heard of any problem with domestic ferrets destroying waterfowl eggs and… we have never encountered any domestic ferrets in the fields.”

Score: California – 0, Ferrets – 2

Myth: Predators of Indigenous Wildlife

Boyd Gibbons, in a letter and Ferret Fact Sheet dated March 25, 1994, claimed that “ferrets can and will survive in the wild in California.” And, in the same letter, he also says that “stray, nonbreeding ferrets could have serious impacts on local wildlife populatons.”

Yet, the United States Public Health Service says that “domestic ferrets… can survive only in captivity”, the Centers for Disease Control asserts that “stray ferrets do not appear capable… of establishing themselves in the wild”, and the State of New Jersey, Department of Environmental Protection argues that “lost ferrets are rarely found and usually die soon after escape.”

Score: California – 0, Ferrets – 3

Myth: As Ferocious as Pit Bulls

The California Department of Health Services hypothesizes that “ferrets,… like pit bulls have been bred to be especially ferocious.”

Not according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the U.S. Public Health Service who testify that ferrets are “easily handled and non-dangerous” and “docile and cat-like”. Doesn’t sound too ferocious to me!

Score: California – 0, Ferrets – 4

Myth: Extincted 20 Bird Species

And who knows how the California Department of Health Services supports its 1988 claim that “ferrets… have contributed to the extinction of 20 species of New Zealand birds and have pushed many to the brink of extinction.”

Carolyn King, Scientific Editor of The Royal Society of New Zealand, states that “mustelids (ferrets, stoats, weasels and polecats) cannot be proved to be directly responsible for any of the shockingly long list of island populations of birds that we know to have become extinct since the human colonization of New Zealand.” She adds further, “There is not a single known extinction or diminution in New Zealand that can be regarded as definitely and solely due to (ferrets and other) mustelids… Overseas the story is the same: only 1 percent of 163 extinctions recorded from islands all over the world since 1600 have been attributed to mustelids compared with 26% attributed to cats and 54% attributed to rats.”

Score: California – 0, Ferrets – 5

Myth: Carriers of Rabies

Once again, the California Department of Health Services makes another astounding claim: “Being fearless, savage and tenacious… should make (ferrets) exceptionally effective transmitters of rabies.”

Yet the Centers for Disease Control Annual Summaries of Rabies Surveillance (1984-1990) clearly indicate findings of 2,310 rabid cats, 2,240 rabid dogs, and only 10 rabid ferrets.

Score: California – 0, Ferrets – 6

Myth: Nonvaccinatable for Rabies

Boyd Gibbons (him again!) erroneously claimed in the same apocryphal letter from 1994 that there is no proven vaccine to prevent rabies in ferrets.

Donald G. Hildebrand, President of Rhone Merieux, in a letter penned less than two weeks later, stated that “Rhone Merieux is the manufacturer of IMRAB, a killed rabies vaccine which has been approved by the United States Department of Agriculture for use in six species of animals, including ferrets…”

Score: California – 0, Ferrets – 7

Conclusion

Ding, ding! Technical knock-out! None of the arguments supporting the premise of keeping ferrets illegal in California are valid.

Most of us older than the current teen Britney Spears’ fan generation know every word of the signature iconic theme song to Gilligan’s Island:

“Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip, that started from this tropic port, aboard this tiny ship. The mate was a mighty sailin’ man, the Skipper brave and sure. Five passengers set sail that day for a three-hour tour… a three-hour tour.”

Source: Wikipedia

Only a three-hour tour? Are we sure about that? Even the original pilot episode was contradictory, debuting a best-forgotten, Caribbean-folk-like jingle penned by renowned composer John Williams, and highlighting a “six-hour trip” instead.

“In tropical sea is a tropic port. Vacation fun is the favorite sport. This is the place where the tourists flock, renting the boats at the busy dock. Two secretaries from the U-S-A, sail on the Minnow this lovely day. A high school teacher is next aboard, all taking trip that they can not afford. The next two people are millionaires. They got no worries. They got no cares. They climb aboard and they step inside, with just enough bags for a six-hour ride.”

There was no scuba gear aboard the tiny ship, so it couldn’t been a diving tour. The ship had to be far enough from shore that it couldn’t escape the incoming storm in time to be swept far from Hawaii’s coasts, so it certainly wasn’t a scenic coastal tour. So what were they doing out there in the middle of nowhere?

Not that the island really was out in the middle of nowhere — a lot of people already knew about the “uncharted desert island”. Remember the plethora of unusual visitors? An exiled president, an actor, a magician, Zsa Zsa Gabor, a mob leader, a painter, a singing group, a mad scientist, a Hollywood director, a butterfly collector, a big-game hunter, and hordes of natives from nearby islands. Don’t forget about the surfer who rode in on a wave all the way from Hawaii! There were many long-term tenants on the island: a long-lost aviator, a Japanese sailor from WWII, a jungle boy, and countless others.

Several world governments knew about the island, too. The tropical getaway was the intended strike zone for a new missile, the location of a transcontinental telephone cable, and the landing site of both a NASA satellite and a Russian space capsule, and the isle was home to experimental plastic explosives, robots, and jet packs. Even foreign spies made trips to the island.

OK, so obviously the island wasn’t really “uncharted”.

Why “The Minnow”? Mr. Howell and his wife weren’t exactly the kind of people that chartered dinky little sea-going boats manned by two inexperienced ex-Navy men. No, they were the luxurious yacht type. Thurston was a Northeastern Yankee millionaire; why was he on board with suitcases full of hundred-dollar bills and enough clothing to last months? Traveling alongside “Professor” Roy Hinkley, with his luggage full of test tubes and beakers, and an amazing knowledge of synthesizing chemicals from local plant life? An unlikely coincidence? It seems so, especially for a high school teacher researching a new book called Fun with Ferns out in the middle of the open sea where there just aren’t many ferns.

The Howells needed a skipper who — for a few extra bucks shared with his trusty first mate Gilligan — would deviate from the standard “three-hour tour” to rendezvous with someone somewhere else. Mr. Howell and his wife were drug smugglers who chartered The Minnow to make a multi-million-dollar drug deal. The Professor came along to ensure the quality of the goods. The Skipper was on Mr. Howell’s payroll, and had an incentive to foil any attempts at rescue. So, obviously, did his Little Buddy, Gilligan, since both the Skipper and Gilligan had knowledge of Mr. and Mrs. Howell’s plan to smuggle drugs. Episode 36 reveals that the contents of at least one of Thurston’s suitcases are packed full with bottles of “medications”.

Why didn’t they just lash together a raft and leave? Oh, sure, they half-heartedly tried it once — during the first episode — but Gilligan successfully sabotaged the attempt and the islanders never tried again. Heading back to the mainland would have been problematic for the Howells; they had arranged to be stranded on the island in order to wait out the statue of limitations for drug running.

Photo © CBS Television

But if the deal never went down, why continue with the “castaway” charade when they were all alone on Gilligan’s Island? Undoubtedly, one of the island residents was not like the others. The Howells, the Skipper, Gilligan and the Professor were in on the sham. That only leaves Ginger and Mary Ann. Ms. Grant was an aging, failing, money-grubbing, B-movie actress. She was either the Professor’s bit o’ crumpet, or Thurston’s bit on the side.

Kansas native Mary Ann Summers, on the other hand, had a fishy tale: she had supposedly won a Hawaiian vacation in a contest at the last minute (aren’t contest prize tickets always given out in pairs?) — and yet her fiancé stayed at home and no one else accompanied her, not even a friend? Mary Ann had been briefed that the five-passenger, two-crew 1960 Wheeler Flying Bridge Cruiser had only one vacancy remaining. Flying the mission solo, Mary Ann was a mole planted by the US Federal Bureau of Narcotics, patiently vying for irrefutable incriminating evidence to convict the ex-multi-billionaires and their accomplices.

It’s always the innocent-looking ones you can’t trust.