Answer: If the Bootheel doesn't have a mole problem, then the Gulf Coast doesn't have a hurricane problem.

Unbelievable! Unbelievable! Unbelievable is currently the most over used word in our language. At least 10 plays in every football game are "unbelievable." Baseball homeruns are "unbelievable." Hurricane Katrina was "unbelievable." The weather when really bad is "unbelievable." A near perfect day is "unbelievable."

If you want to see something that is really unbelievable just take a look at what a furry, pink-nosed, little, underground, rat can do to your front yard.

Mole: Scientific name: scapanus latimaus. The mole is defined in the dictionary as: "any number of numerous boring insectivors with minute eyes, concealed ears, and soft fur."

Forgetting the zoological and lexicographical gibberish, what we are dealing with here is a little, subterranean, terrorist that can turn your yard into no-man's land. It's a good thing they have concealed ears, because they have probably had more invectives thrown their way than any living creature in the Bootheel -- except the mosquito.

Does anyone have a pet mole? Don't think so. People have pet tarantulas, or pet anacondas, or pet alligators. But no one has a pet mole. You can't buy mole food at Walmart.

The reason Wal-Mart doesn't sell mole food is because they don't stock grub worms. Grub worms are what moles eat, everybody says. This alone should tell you about the character of a mole. Just what a grub worm is as opposed to any other worm is up for grabs, But logic would tell you that it is just a common earthworm.

The earthworm is basically harmless. About the only negative you can put on an earthworm is that they often end up on your windshield, because birds like them too.

Actually earthworms are beneficial due to the fact that they enrich the soil by bringing subsoil to the surface, and bringing up potassium and phosphorous nitrogenous products from their own metabolism. Big Deal!! For the mole they are just grub. (If you will excuse the pun.)

Moles are voracious eaters. Their high metabolic weight causes them to burn off so much food they must eat their own weight in food every day. So they start churning through your front yard and cramming themselves all the way. In the process they make intricate tunnels that would confuse an engineer, and create little mounds that look like small levees. Thank goodness they are not large animals. Only horror enthusiasts Steven Spielberg, or Stephen King, could love a giant mole.

There are many devices recommendable for ridding your yard of moles. The optium plan of course is to force them to your neighbors yard, whereon he will do everything he can to drive them back to yours. This reciprocity system only gives temporary relief and does nothing to eliminate the moles.

You might try planting poison pills in the ground. You can use pitchforks, spades, axes, bulldozers, or dynamite. Maybe the best plan is to flail your arms, stomp the ground, and yell obscenities. One thing seems to work as well as the others.

There are only a few people with any reputation at all as mole killers. One such person is Kennett resident, Rick McCormick. Rick is a pleasant guy with a stoic demeanor. You would never suspect him of being an MT, (Mole Terminator). Rick served his apprenticeship under the venerable, Carlos Woodard, one of the legends of the mole extermination game.

Front yard seminars with Rick reveal little about his technique, but it seems to be based on grim determination and patience. Rick smokes a pipe, and people who smoke pipes have patience and a calm attitude; or at least it seems that way. They may be like the proverbial duck on the pond: smooth as silk on the surface, but legs churning underneath. But if attitude can kill a mole, then Rick McCormick, and others like him, should be running this country.

The Answer Man will appear on occasion in the Daily Dunklin Democrat, and will provide answers to various and sundry questions about local people, etc. Readers are invited to submit their queries to The Answer Man by e-mailing them to bhunt@dddnews.com.