Raccoons

I grew up as part of a small interdependent community, something rare in the world today, and am thankful for that. Armed with a hammer and a crowbar we entered the buildings and made a thorough sweep of the downstairs and its many cracks and crevices. One incident happened late at night while everyone was asleep. When they started to raid our garden, we trapped them and moved them to Isle au Haut, a nearby island with less than 60 year-round residents, only to have them swim back over. Finding nothing we climbed the decrepit staircase and put our ears to the walls to listen for telltale squeaks. At the top of the stairs was my parent’s bed, where my younger brother, Cyrus was sleeping between my Mom and Pop. The raccoons had discovered how to use a doorknob and snuck in the middle of the night to do some exploring. Dad thought he could hear something, and wedging his crowbar between the laths of the wall, exposed a ball of fir composed of three baby raccoons. Because they were never allowed on the second floor, once inside their curiosity headed them straight for the stairs. As the raccoon burrowed its wet nose against my mother she woke up in the middle of a scream that woke everyone up and sent the raccoon scurrying down the stairs and out the door from whence it came.

It is natural for a raccoon, a wild animal, to leave behind its docile and dependent personality of babyhood. They took a strong liking to the whole family, as we did to them, and thrived on being fed warm milk from my little brother’s bottles.