It's Skunk Time ... Again

No, I'm not talking about politics.

Last night/early this morning we had our first aromatic visit from the skunk(s) in our neighborhood. Sure signs of spring: blossoming flowers, reeking skunks.

Last night's aroma woke me up--at first I thought we had a gas leak. But, no, it was a skunk leak--though leak is not exactly accurate. Skunks do it on purpose. (I wonder, when they're old, if they, like us, lose control?)

So I was able to drift back to sleep.

Later, I thought about one skunk adventure I remember from boyhood ...

We had recently moved to Hiram, Ohio, where Dad would teach at Hiram College. Summer of 1956 we moved.

For faculty housing, Hiram had three old houses in a cluster back on a little cul-de-sac called Dodge Court, which lay behind an old brick dormitory, Bowler Hall, then being used to house the music department. (I took piano lessons in there—very grateful there are no recordings.)

We moved into one of the houses. In the other two were Prof. Miller (history), his wife and daughter, Sarah, a junior high student (like me). They had a cat—a cat which our dog, Sooner, quickly dispatched. But let’s not get into that.

In the other house were the Proctors: Francis (music department—and church organist) and his two daughters (Jane and Mary) and son (Johnny). Jane was in high school, Mary in junior high, Johnny in elementary—the approximate ages of the three Dyer boys.

The Proctors had two dogs: Princess, a beautiful collie, and Judy, a little yappy white-and-black terrier, a lap dog that thought it was White Fang—or Wolverine. That little beast scared the hell out of me. (One day, outside, it ran up, bit my grandmother in the ankle, ran away.) Judy spent much of her day in the lap of Mrs. Proctor, a wonderful woman, who was confined to a wheelchair because of polio.

Okay ... one fine day we heard fierce barking from the rear basement entrance to Bowler Hall. We (whoever “we” were—I can’t remember all who were there) hurried over there, smelled that unmistakable smell, and just as we were turning to run away, here came Princess and Sooner sprinting out of the basement, reeking of skunk.

Let’s just say that Sooner was not for the following weeks the most pleasant of canine companions. But at least he had short hair. Princess had that luxurious long hair that very reluctantly released the stink over the weeks that followed.

I don’t think Sooner understood at all why we didn’t want to play all that much with him. I’m sure he felt rejected, neglected, etc. Dad, though, understood. Tried to wash him. (Skunk smell + wet dog smell = disaster.)

I think, however, that for both Princess and Sooner this was a demonstration of what they call “One-Trial Learning.” For human children, it’s touching the hot stove, messing with an electrical plug in an outlet, etc. Do it once and you won’t do it again.

I can’t leave without another Princess story. A couple of years later, both the Proctors and the Dyers moved to houses down Hiram’s north hill a little. We’d bought an old farmhouse; they’d built a single-story place created to ease Mrs. Proctor’s life.

One day, my uncle Ronald (Mom’s brother) was visiting. He was a distinguished clergyman and professor in a seminary. Very ... proper in many ways (not so much in others).

So, we were sitting out on our porch, and here came Princess, who for a reason I choose not to think about, decided it would be a good idea to hump Uncle Ronald’s leg.

He didn’t seem to know what to do about it. But I did: I laughed myself sick.