Before my mother married my father, she volunteered to stay on the farm to “look after” Dad’s younger motherless siblings for one week while the older siblings attended a church camp. Normally their older sister would be stuck with the job. The two of the four children in my mother’s care were teenaged brothers. They tested her all week long. How they wrangled a skunk, if they did, has never been revealed. Perhaps they were simply opportunists. But a skunk was on the lane heading toward the springhouse where the milk was kept. They ran to my mother, handed her a rifle, and told her she had to save the day by shooting the skunk. They didn’t know she could shoot, but she had learned from her parents, and my grandmother had been a crack shot in her day. Mom only needed one shot to dispatch the skunk. When the older siblings returned from the camp, they were told about the exploit. So impressed and amused was one brother that when he saw a ceramic skunk in a department store soon after, bought it, and gave it to Mom as an award for her markswomanship. Thus the skunk collection was born.
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Thank you for sharing this cool story.
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