An Unexpected Guest...

Thom Dunn

(1) THE HIGHWAY

I got home  from school where I teach just in time to see the house across the street being torn down with a backhoe. I had not known that was possible. Later I saw the former occupant, Mr.Brumbaugh, relocated further up Joseph Court, while Dunns and Streckers remained the last two families on the now snubbed off end of the street. All shortly became clear: The Cross-County Highway was finally in the process of being finished, After the houses were removed, day and night bulldozers raked back and forth over the ground tearing up an entire creek bed and all foliage on either side. Word spread quickly: "The Cross County Highway's going through " We didn't call it the Ronald Reagan highway because we were among those Democrats whose hatred for Reagan bordered on the visceral.  After a while we got to calling it simply The Highway.

(2) FIRST CONTACT

Not long after the building of the Highway got going, we had our first contact with a "guest":  about 5:00 AM something entered our attic. Sounding like a drunken sailor, it clomped across the floor of the attic just over our heads. It didn't take long to guess it was a raccoon, a big one it sounding like--perhaps a half-ton or more. We learned later that raccoons do not LIVE through the day, they HARBOR, picking out a convenient spot to spend the day in preparation for night forays. After days of this, the entrance point became clear while the harbor was a spot over the porch we came to call, "Club Med". Club Med for the raccoon, or course, something less expansive for us. At this point it was all in fun--except for the 5:00 AM wake-ups. We were still relatively young and ready for adventure. Well, this was the start of one.

(3)  CRITTER CONTROL

The way Bill explained it to me, you want to trap the raccoon OUTside the house to avoid leading other raccoons Inside. Bill was tall and rangy. The name of his outfit (Critter Control) appealed to me. The trap was two feet long. Rocky walks in the open end going after the bait. As he does he triggers a deadfall that closes behind him. Bill nailed a trap to the roof and the next morning a big raccoon went straight for it: When Bill came to take Rocky away I asked him What happens now ? To the raccoon, I mean. Bill said that it would be taken far away and released.  I didn't inquire further, hoping I was being told the truth. Within a week we had captured three raccoons. I say "We" because I was paying for it.