Dawn Phelps
Columnist
I recently wrote about our little town with its own Tom, Dick, and Harry, and this story is about Harry, Dick, and a raccoon. Harry told my husband Tom and me about it a couple of years ago after we took him to Longford to the Coachlight Restaurant for his birthday.
After a yummy buffet, as we were driving toward home on the blacktop a few miles north of Longford, Harry said, “Oh, this is about where Dick hit a raccoon when I was a kid.” Then he proceeded to tell us their adventure.
Harry said that his older brother Dick was the driver and that he thought Butch Demars was in the front seat with Dick. Harry said that Butch said, “Hey, go back and get that coon—I want to skin him out.”
Harry said that he, Dick, and Butch were not the only ones in the vehicle, that there were other kids. He said he thought that Dick, their baseball coach, may have been driving the team to Longford to a play a game, but he could not remember for sure.
Anyway, Harry said Dick turned their ’53 (or ’55) Desoto station wagon around, and they went back to get the raccoon. They put the raccoon in the back of the station wagon, and off they went. And they soon turned west on the Oak Hill Road.
It wasn’t long until things changed in the very back of that ole station wagon! Harry said that “barking and growling” sounds were coming from behind the back seat where Harry and some other boys were sitting.
Harry said that the raccoon had awakened and was “really upset.” He said the coon had decided that he “really hated humans” and that “there were several humans” in the station wagon.
Consequently, Dick pulled the station wagon to the side of the road. Then, Harry said, “Everybody started piling out.” Harry said that, at first, he kind of hesitated to scramble out of the car, that he really did not feel very scared. But since everybody else piled out, he got out too.
Tom and I asked Harry how old he was at the time. Harry said he was not sure, but he was “maybe 6-7 or maybe 4th grade.” He did not remember his age but said that Fred Demars and Brad Williams might have been along.
Tom, Harry, and I had a good laugh about the raccoon that was supposed to have been dead but came alive and gave everybody a scare!
I later talked to Dick about his memories of the incident—Dick is about nine to ten years older than Harry. Here is Dick’s story.
Dick said he was the coach for Harry’s Pee Wee baseball team; Dick was about 18 at the time. He said he had taken several of the boys to Longford to the rodeo in their 1953 Desoto station wagon. (It was a nice thing for an older brother/coach to do for the younger baseball players.)
Dick said that he did not hit the raccoon, that it had already been hit when they came along. But they did stop, pick up the raccoon, and put him in the back of the station wagon so Butch could take it home and skin it out.
He totally agreed with Harry about how unhappy the raccoon was when he woke up in the back of the vehicle. He said that the raccoon “was really squealing and growling” and that they had “all bailed out!” leaving the growling raccoon in the station wagon alone.
Dick said they opened the tailgate, but the coon refused to leave. Instead, somehow, the coon got under the front seat of the vehicle, perhaps while everybody else was bailing out. Since coons can even climb trees, it would have been easy for him to get from the back of the station wagon and get under the front seat!
Despite his “squealing and growling,” with some poking, prodding, and encouragement, the angry rascal finally crawled out of the station wagon too. Then Dick and all the kids “piled back into the car,” according to Harry, and headed on home. I asked Dick if they let the coon go, and Dick said yes, “that coon took off!”
Hearing Harry and Dick talk about their memories of the revived raccoon brought back a critter memory of my daddy fighting and killing a rattle snake in the dark one night in Tennessee. While us young kids sat in the Jeep, watching the snake repeatedly strike at our dad, it was a very scary time, but my dad won! But that’s another story.
Perhaps you too have revisited a particular location that brought back a vivid critter memory from your younger years. Last Sunday Tom and I drove past where “the coon story” had taken place. Again, we remembered and laughed at the Dick, Harry and the Racoon story!
