UCLA has lots of very entertaining squirrels, and I can speak with authority on the subject. I grew up surrounded by squirrels — sometimes literally, when I’d climb the orange trees in front of one of my childhood homes in Northridge, Calif., and into the middle of a squirrel family’s orange-harvesting party.

My high school and college were overrun with curious squirrels scavenging for lunch scraps. The more aggressive ones would climb onto my lap, so I’ve hand-fed seemingly hundreds of squirrels over the years, much to my parents’ horror. My first year as a volunteer at the California Wildlife Center was spent nursing orphaned baby squirrels (among other critters) to maturity, and I still stop by the hospital for a squirrel fix whenever I’m there. My patio at home gets daily visits from the neighborhood squirrels.

Squirrels are endlessly entertaining in the way they curiously dart from place to place — sometimes pausing to sniff the air for safety — and I can’t help watching their antics and wondering what they’ll do next. Of course, the biggest playgrounds attract the most squirrels, and UCLA has the biggest squirrel playground I’ve seen outside a park. So there are lots of opportunities to catch sweet moments on video and photo-ops galore on days I’m teaching there.

When I was a kid, everyone around me believed all squirrels carry rabies, so I was ordered to stay away from the critters. My parents said if a squirrel bit me, I’d be rushed to the doctor for a series painful rabies shots in my stomach. Not my arm, my stomach. Being the ticklish type and not a big fan of needles at the time, I kept a safe distance. Only after I started volunteering at the CWC did I learn squirrels are not a rabies vector species. Raccoons, skunks, foxes and bats are, dammit, but not squirrels.

Wish my family knew that back then.

My mom told me years later that my dad and uncle Bob would trap the squirrels in our yard at her request and relocate them to… someplace. She wouldn’t tell me where. I like to think they lived out their natural lives frolicking in the neighboring orange groves.