Lynda Watson is a self-described grumpy, 60-year-old hillbilly. She has lived in the Lubbock area for 35 years, working in wild-animal rescue. Before that, she was a cowboy.
“[It] seems counterproductive,” she says. “Now I’m saving prairie dogs.”
Amid all of the stress and uncertainty that come with the coronavirus pandemic, Watson still has to care for her rescued animals. She feeds them fresh fruits and vegetables. But if the food supply chain is somehow disrupted, the prairie dogs will be OK; they can eat what they eat in the wild: grass.
“Lynda’s gonna be out in the fields cutting grass, or having every kid in the neighborhood to bring me buckets of grass,” she says, half joking.
Watson is helping people in her community, too.
“We’ve got two families with cancer, one that’s doing dialysis. … These people don’t even need to be going to the grocery store,” she says.
So she’s been shopping for them – and disinfecting as much as possible along the way. She says it feels like “COVID roulette” every time she does an errand because no matter how many precautions she takes, there’s still risk of contracting the disease. But not everyone has to do what she does to be helpful. Sometimes simply staying home is the best way to do good.
“You do things because it’s the right thing to do,” she says.
Written by Caroline Covington.
