Cows & Raccoons

You are probably asking yourself what do cows and raccoons have in common, and it would be right fair-minded of you to do so. Well the answer is, my parents.

The last home my parents owned was in a small farm town in Northern Indiana. The corn fields ran long and the corn was always knee-high by the time our nations’ birthday rolled around. The best way to get from here to there was using the long straight state highways. After the horse and buggy were gone, pavement was laid down and gas stations were popping up and making good money.

This one particular highway, the one I’m thinking of right now, was Indiana State Route 30 which ran from the northwest communities out to the small farm town of Wanatah where my parents lived. They owned a 2010 Ford Focus. They always owned a Ford. My dad was a Ford guy and my Uncle Jack was a Chevy guy. You talk about getting bored fast listening to these two go at it every time they got together, “the Ford is the superior vehicle”, “No the Chevy is a better built car”. Well that was it for me. I decided right then and there when I grew up I was not going to own either. So far, I have kept my word.

One night my parents were driving down good-old Route 30, my mom behind the wheel and my dad navigating from her right. He might have been halfway asleep, but I wasn’t there so I am not going to propound a plausible theory without full knowledge. So anyway, there was my mom driving down Route 30 with my dad sleeping next to her, when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, a herd of black angus cows wandered out onto the highway, nearly invisible to the naked eye. One of the cows darted out and T-Boned the side of the Ford Focus. There was significant damage from this moooo-ving violation, which was utterly ridiculous.

My dad went back to the farm the next day and confronted the farmer and his negligent cows. He demanded payment for the damage to the Focus, but in the end got nothing as the farmer simply denied the bovid accusation.

A couple of months later in mid-August, the hottest time in the year, my parents were heading due south on Route 421. My mom was driving home when the sun was highest in the sky. The weather that day was hotter than blue blazes. There was no traffic for miles behind them and only one semi-truck for miles heading towards them, both vehicles at slightly exceeded legal speed racing toward a point in the road when they would pass each other. Only there was one problem. Somewhere along the road closer to the truck was a four day old fully-bloated rotting sack of maggot-infested goo that once was a living, breathing raccoon. But no more. The sweltering August sun had been doing its best to roast it on the road. As the truck approached the raccoon, the wind rolled it over and one of the tires kicked it airborne. As the raccoon sailed through the air with the intention of making a big splash upon landing, my parents car got in the way. Its target was the center of their windshield which provided a very rich description of rotten raccoon for their viewing pleasure. My mother choked back vomit and hit the windshield wipers.

Five minutes later they were home, my mother in the bathroom (we’ll leave her with her privacy) and my father in the front lawn holding a garden hose in front of the Ford Focus, washing the last of this part of the story off. I like to think he was whistling something to himself, maybe “Girl from Ipanema”

Oh yeah, my mom also ran over a large-mouth bass fish on the road. A fisherman must have lost it off the back of his truck. But I won’t go into that story, that would be just another ludicrous fish tale.

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