Childhood is such a marvelous time. A time of great wonders when nearly every experience is new. A time when food is still an exploration. We all have memories of those times past. In today's life my friends and I are real foodies. We love fine food and the stories that go along with such adventures. Today's recollection is of a childhood time when food was on the table but the experience was somewhat different. Follow down the yellow brick road, around the curve, and over the bridge for another of the possum's tales.
As a child I enjoyed the benefits of hunting wild game both in the field and on the table. By age six or seven my brothers and I were taught the care and handling of a shotgun. Christmas at nine years old brought the first shotgun of my own, a 20-gage, Remington, semi-automatic, with a stock shortened to fit the arm length of a child. The gun had quite a recoil and left a bruised shoulder behind after each day of hunting.
My family hunted rabbits and doves with regularity. When we were young my father loaded the car with people and dogs (if we were rabbit hunting) and off we went. Dad always knew a farmer where we could hunt with full permission of the landowner. Sometimes we stopped at the owner's house, but most times we had blanket permission and just went to the fields. Many times we took along my father's friend, Bud. I never did discover how the two of them came to be friends as they were very opposite in so many ways. Far from the privileged childhood that was mine, Bud's existence gave new meaning to the word, poor. Bud was retired when we first met at about my 6th birthday. He scrambled for every bite of food on the table. His very living was always in peril from most any adverse event. Still Bud took life as it came his way without complaint. Whatever he had always seemed to be enough for his satisfaction.
Bud was a crack shot since shotgun shells in those days cost as much as 10 cents. He could not afford to miss even a single effort to kill his target or he would be both poorer and hungry. Many days my dad gave Bud shells for the hunt as there were not always enough in Bud's house to accomplish much. Poor as Bud may have been in economic terms, he was a treasure trove of natural wisdom and folk tales. He knew the ways of the animals and could always find his way back to the car no matter how far we wandered through either fields or woods. He delighted in telling stories to show a child the ways of the world. If or not the stories were true I do not know to this day. I still remember just how tall Bud stood in the eyes of a little boy. In fact Bud stood tall in his own ways by most any measure of men.
One special winter day we were hunting rabbits. My father, my brother, Bud, and myself were in the hunting party as we were on so many occasions. For his own reasons Bud had dropped back behind the group. I followed him to see what was about to happen as Bud had a way of finding interesting things along the way. One just never knew what to expect in his company. Seems he had seen a nest high in a tree. With no leaves on the trees the nest was easy enough to see with a structure of leaves and twigs in the high fork of the tree. Bud, with his keen eye for nature, somehow knew the nest belonged to a possum and that the owner was in the nest. A 10-year-old boy is easy prey for a man who he worships and so convincing me to shoot at the nest was pretty easy for Bud.
Lo and behold, not only was Mr. Possum in residence, he was killed by a single shot aimed only at the nest. Somehow the eyes of a boy were not good enough to actually see the animal in the nest. Remembering the sound of that possum's falling to the ground with a heavy thud shocks me to this day. The shot brought by father and brother back to see what happened. Father reminded me of the family rule, "Whatever you kill, you eat." No exceptions were allowed. My brother already had a cardinal served for dinner when he mistook the song bird for a dove. Mr. Possum was duly loaded inside the game jacket I wore for the trek home. Mother was not entirely pleased to hear we had bagged a possum, but Dad convinced her that the lesson was important. Dad dressed Mr. Possum and presented him to Mother for cooking.
Mother boiled the possum for what seemed like 4 days, but was more likely only a few hours. The smell permeated the entire house since the weather was cold and the windows were all shut down tight. After boiling to remove a large portion of the fat which possums accumulate just from living a possum life, the carcass was baked for dinner. I remember mashed potatoes (a staple of family dining in our home) along with the meat. In addition we had green beans (green in name only as they were always cooked in fat and sugar into a shapeless, dark brown mass before eating) and most likely had jello in addition to desert (Mother really made a mean pie or cake in those days).
Dinner in our household was almost always served on a back porch that was converted to a dining area when I was about 6-years-old. We ate on a formica topped, 1950's table the same as did most of our friends and neighbors. Meals in the dining room were reserved for special occasions such as times when our relatives were visiting or the occasional Sunday dinner. Just imagine the family's surprise when Mr. Possum landed on the dining room table. We used our everyday dishes and silverware but the room was otherwise decorated just as though we were having company for dinner.
My father served the meat from a platter in front of his plate. Each person got a fair share and somehow my share seemed bigger than others. Having already smelled dinner in preparation we were all suspicious of our fare. Our worst suspicions were confirmed by the very first bite. Not only did the meat taste pretty strong, gamy, and to our minds, purely foul, but the fatty texture lent a degree of sliminess that defies adequate description even though the memory is crystal clear even today. We each and every one were entirely cured of our possum dinner desires. Never again did we kill or eat a possum in my home. My father's lesson was a good one, well applied so we learned right then and there not to kill what we did not wish to have for dinner.