Waxing Nostalgic Over Skunks

I miss the skunks. It used to be that when I turned into the driveway late at night, I would check the yard before I let the dog out of the car. I haven’t done that in awhile now. I also remember finding largish holes in the grass and thinking I had overzealous squirrels, only to realize, no, it was skunks, looking for and finding grubs. Now, even though it has rained hard enough to consider planting rice, I still have dead patches in the grass that are, no doubt, caused by grubs. I miss the skunks.

And what happened to them, you wonder? Well, they used to put out bait along the canal, laced with a medication to prevent raccoons, skunks etc. from getting rabies, but then budgets got tight, they missed a few years and rabies somehow slipped in. I can’t be sure, but I think that is why skunks aren’t nearly as plentiful as they used to be. Remember that crazy song “Dead skunk in the middle of the road”? Maybe not, but I haven’t seen many of those either.

Now, I know there probably a percentage of you out there who would say, good riddance. Especially if you have a dog who has tangled with them, and you know that no amount of tomato juice really does the job. But I also get nostalgic for skunks because a million years ago, when I was just graduating from college, I raised a pair of skunks. I worked at a small natural history museum at the time, and the kindly head ranger there, in the spring, would take in the baby raccoons, opossums, etc., that people would find and bring to us. But it turned out that the “kindly” man wasn’t so kind after all. He “took care” of them all right, in a way that would make a pest exterminator proud. After that, no young animals made it past my desk to him but, rather, came home with me.

This particular pair of orphaned animals, were so young, they had yet to get their fur. And so, you can imagine my surprise when they did. Ah! Skunks! But adorable skunks and so young that any spats only ended in a slight musky odor. They do warn you, they would stamp their small feet, at each other mostly, then turn around, and if the one picking the fight didn’t back off, the other would let him have it. I was never the intended recipient of any of these temper tantrums. Using a fan to remove the air took care of things nicely.

But what was so memorable about them, was that their tender, young, need-to-be-fed frequently, age, coincided with my college graduation. And so, all in black and white, as they should be, they came along with me in a shoebox, under my chair. And today, they are probably the only clear memory I have of that ceremony. The speaker left no life-long mark on my psyche, not even the whole momentous idea that soon I would have to work for a living. However, what I do remember, was feeding those skunks with a bottle mid ceremony and how everyone around me was more amused then they would have been otherwise. I eventually released them both to a beautiful, way out of my league, woodsy neighborhood and I hope they had long and meaningful lives. After all, they were college graduates.

Tomorrow I will go to a preschool and entertain them with “Jimmy Skunk Looks for Beetles”, a classic Burgess tale that has been tweaked a bit by me, but is one of my favorite puppet shows to do. And I will wish I could tell them, to keep an eye out for the signs that Jimmy skunk was looking for beetles in their yard, but perhaps I shouldn’t get their hopes up.

But maybe I am wrong. Maybe they are flourishing in your neighborhood and you would send me some if you could. I hope that is the case. I do believe some private money was made available last year to leave some bait out, so with luck, they will repopulate the area. Until then, I will just quietly miss the skunks.