by Dorothy Markulis

Reporter

Hudson -- Who shot the Clocktower mouse?

That was the question on the minds of Hudson police and many residents who woke up Dec. 5 to find an arrow sticking out of the mouse's head.

Barb O'Connor, who works for Realty One on North Main Street, said she got an early morning call from a family member telling her about the arrow in the head of the mouse that annually decorates the Clocktower across the street.

"I couldn't believe it," said O'Connor. "Poor little guy. He had an arrow right in the back of his head."

O'Connor said she called police to report the "assault."

"I said 'I'm sure you already know this, but there is an arrow in the head of the Clocktower mouse,'" she said.

The dispatcher responded to her complaint with stunned silence.

She said she didn't know if the dispatcher thought she was joking but said police responded very quickly, as did the electric department with a cherry-picker truck.

Jeff Fullerton, electrical operational specialist with Hudson Public Power, said he went up in the bucket truck and pulled the steel-tipped arrow from the mouse's head shortly after 10 a.m.

Fullerton theorized someone shot the mouse, which is about 15 to 20 feet off the ground, "sometime during the night."

Police Chief Dave Robbins said the charge would be criminal mischief and discharging a missile within the city, if the perpetrator could be found. The two charges are misdemeanor offenses.

"There was very little damage to the mouse," said Robbins. "My biggest concern is somebody firing an arrow downtown."

He said unless someone comes forward who saw the act, there is very little the police could do to figure out who shot the mouse.

Mary Lou Morse, a member of Hudson Community Service, who is in charge of the decorations on the Clocktower, said the mouse has been a Christmas tradition since the 1950s.

"At one time we had wood cut-outs on the Clocktower," said Morse. "Then Jeanette Wickes made the first mouse with fabric."

The fabric mouse made his appearance in the late 1950s, according to Morse. His summer home was in the Wickes' barn on North Oviatt Street.

When the Wickes moved in the 1990s, William and Judy Garvey bought their home and inherited the mouse.

"It was pretty beaten up," said William.

He said his wife, Judy, took the mouse to a seamstress who suggested it would be easier to make a new mouse than to renovate the old one. She commissioned a new one about 10 years ago, but "it still has the old nose," William said.

E-mail: dmarkulis@recordpub.com

Phone: 330-688-0088 ext. 3143