SAVING SKEETER - 1972 - I was 19 years old and returning home to California after living in Amarillo Texas for 6 months. Before leaving TX I noticed a sign that read, “Raccoons For Sale.” I stopped to take a look and saw a mother raccoon and several babies crammed in a small wire cage. My heart broke. I couldn’t save them all but I could save one. I named her Skeeter and took her home with me to California. On the way, I pulled off the road to get gas but the station was closed until morning so I parked to wait and get some sleep. Skeeter, being nocturnal, was ready to play and she kept me awake climbing on my head and patting my face with her little hands.

My parents weren’t thrilled about having a raccoon in the house but they went along with me. We put her in the bathroom at night thinking she couldn’t do much damage in that small space. The next morning we found that she had pulled down the shower curtain, turned on the water and escaped to the sink. One trick that we didn’t appreciate was she liked to claw her way up your legs, body, to your head where she pretended to be a raccoon skin cap. She ripped my Mom’s nylons and scarred my bare legs.

Before long I realized that Skeeter was a little too much for me to care for so I gave her to a teacher in the Biology Department at my college whose home backed up to the woods. She had befriended a family of wild Raccoons that came often to raid her trash cans. Skeeter joined that family and lived happily ever after.

Template: Woodland Magic Templates by Heartstrings Scrap Art
Kit: Rocky Raccoon by Aimee Harrison