Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road

Coming home from choir practice and Bible study on Sunday night, I watched carefully for deer as I always try to do. As I topped the hill beside our farm and just before I was to turn into our lane, suddenly there was a dead skunk in the middle of the road. I only had a second to react, but I thought I managed to straddle the creature as I heard no thump. But from there on home, I could smell skunk. So I parked the car outside in the yard rather than in the garage.

The next day it was raining, and Gerald drove the car to town and put it in the garage when he got home--only to quickly decide the car was not yet ready for polite company. So back outside it went.

We did place the car in the garage yesterday. The scent is diminishing. You have to lean over pretty close to the car and sniff, but that smell is still there in a small amount.

Going back to church last night to catch a ride for our presentation of catata music at the nursing home, I worried I might have picked up a little more scent as I think the skunk smell has been spread over a wider area as people have hit and squashed the poor corpse. No one has had the courage to move it off the road. I certainly haven't.

A dead skunk in the middle of the road always reminds me of that song by the same name back in the 70s. Remember it on country music stations? Our young son Gerry and his sisters all loved to listen to W3D in those days and feel connected to the outside world. Gerry was espescially fond of all the call-ins and had a way of embarrassing his sisters--sometimes deliberately as when he persuaded little Mary Ellen to call in and request "Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road." And I think his older sister was embarrassed when he would offer to sell someone else's horse and we would find outselves fielding phone calls from would-be purchasers.

I did not write on schedule last night because I wanted to call my sister Rosemary in Amarillo instead and have a sister talk and wish her a happy birthday. She said they had had the worst ice storm there in 20 years or so. However, her husband and she did get out to the grocery store yesterday afternoon as he drove her there.

This morning I wondered what to write about, and I decided I'd write about our skunk problems tonight. I thought it was kinda funny to share, and it definitely had a rural angle that I am always searching for.

However, I am not in a humorous mood tonight as we just learned this afternoon that our beloved sister-in-law Ginger Glasco is suddenly going to have to have open-heart surgery at Cape Girardeau in the morning at 8 o'clock. I've requested prayer for her, and now I must go to bed so I can get up early in the morning.

We plan to go to Cape as soon as Gerald has what should be a short check-up with his doctor in the morning. I had a check-up this afternoon, and I won't need to see the cardiologist until a year from now. That was lovely news. All I have to do is stay on my medicine and start walking 20 minutes a day--something that I have done in the past more than 20 minutes a day, but that I have gotten lax about. So I have a new year's resolution all prepared.