Bandit Wanted

Our wants as children are often hard to explain. I always wanted a raccoon. I can’t say exactly why the idea appealed to me so. Maybe it was a Disney movie that had a raccoon in it. Whatever it was that married me to this idea I stuck to it for years. Even my brother, Steven, helped push this raccoon idea – one of our rarely united fronts. However my parents weren’t buying the idea. That isn’t true mostly Mom wasn’t buying the idea. Mom feared the raccoon would destroy the house, or give me rabies or something mothers would worry about. I believe Dad secretly wanted me to win this battle. However, Mom was pretty firm that raccoons weren’t pets. This is from a woman who had a pet alligator in Cherryville NC. As a child I wasn’t aware of this fact.

As an eight year old I did my best to convince Mom this would work. I bought a book on how to raise a raccoon trying to convince my parents that I was an expert on the subject. I could point to my book with pride and show them the whole idea had been carefully researched. However some book by a hippie on how to raise raccoons to be like a member of the family wasn't enough to win Mom over. I’m not sure where I got the book. This was pre-amazon.com days and it wasn’t like Gastonia was abound with bookstores.

To try to appease me my parents got me a rabbit and the rabbit was great. I would bring whole classes from school home to see my rabbit. We lived right across the street from the school so it was an easy spur of the moment field trip. I don’t think any permission slips were signed – school was less formal in those days. I would point to pride at my rabbit. I would take her out of her run and let people hold her.

She gave me good bragging rights, but she wasn’t the same as a raccoon. We couldn’t have any adventures, or climb trees together, or get into mischief. But she never destroyed the house or infected anyone with rabies. So, I guess that was an alright trade off.

The book is still at Mom’s house in case I take up the notion again.