I wrote this in Word as I did not have access to the blog at the time. I won't vouch for the formatting but I hope the story is still there.
My Brother and the Possum
I tell this from memory of the last
time my brother related the tale to me. I cannot recall whether or
not I have posted it here. So, if I have, forgive me as I’m
getting older and us older people love to repeat our stories.
Sometimes with alterations as our memories become more subjective.
From about early 1958 until September 7
of 1961 our family lived at a place called Spring Knob in (very)
rural Southeastern Kentucky. We lived in a small log cabin which
was the home of whomever was keeping watch in the forestry tower
there. I have many memories of that place for sure. A lot of things
happened there which were formative to my childhood.
This particular story is one I do not
personally recall happening but was related to me by my elder
brother. Not sure what year it was but I do remember my brother quit
high school so he could complete vocational school prior to turning
eighteen. He is twelve years older than I so this would have had to
have been between 1957 and 1959 as those were the years for him being
between sixteen and eighteen.
Spring Knob tower was on the top of a
hill four and one tenth miles from Route forty. I will never forget
this measurement as my Dad often quoted it in his stories. And,
repetition is the key to learning, as we have all heard. There was
a rutted out dirt road which lead from the blacktop out that way.
They have built a lot of homes out in that direction now but then it
was mostly deserted. I really can remember only one house that sat
near the road and that house figures prominently into this story.
The reason I recall my brother’s age
is because at the beginning of this tale is his habit of running from
Route 40 to the cabin at Spring Knob after his ride from the
vocational school dropped him off so he would have time to do some
afternoon squirrel hunting.
It was during one of these runs this
story begins. Recall that one house I said sat near the road. Best
I can recall it was about half way so about two miles from the road
and the same from our house. The occupant of this house was a well
known moonshiner. I forget the name and that is not important to the
story at any rate.
This particular man was very good at
making whiskey. In fact, he bought used bourbon barrels from
distilleries in central Kentucky and aged his home made liquor in
them. Aging liquor in charred barrels is where the dark color and
much of the smoky flavor originates.
On this particular late afternoon he
hailed my brother on his way home from school and asked if he’s
like some “char whiskey”. Being a member of my family (who never
turned down a drink in our lives) he stopped in and sat drinking and
talking with this man for some time. When he was ready to leave the
man asked him if he wanted some apples and gave him a larger, brown,
paper grocery bag full of them to take home with him.
What with the bag of apples and the
skin full of whiskey I expect he no longer felt like running so he
was walking on homeward when he saw a possum (OK, for the picky,
O’possum) cross the road in front of him and climb up a nearby
tree. He sat down the bag of apples and gathered rocks to throw at
the possum to try and knock it out of the tree. He did not succeed
(wonder why his aim was so bad?) and when it got too dark to find
rocks he began throwing apples at the critter. Finally he connected
and knocked the possum out of the tree. When it hit the ground,
instead of running, it ‘sulled’ up. A trick of the possum to
‘play dead’ hoping to fool whatever is messing with it.
So, my brother picked up the possum by
the tail and the remaining apples in the bag and headed on home. He
said it was well after dark when he got home and everyone was in bed
already. (One must remember we had no electricity at that cabin so
dark mostly meant bedtime.) So, he sat the, much diminished, bag of
apples and the possum down on the floor and went to bed on the sofa
where he always slept.
He said he was awakened the next
morning by our mother screaming and the possum sitting in the middle
of our kitchen table.
As I recall he has not related to me
what happened after this or I have just forgotten. Of the many
things we could say about our childhoods in Kentucky the one thing we
can never say is it was boring.
