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Volume 10, Issue 7 - Feature #3363

Old Grimes Road Racer - NW Alva, OK

Grimes Bridge When I was a boy during the thirties the road leading to Grimes Bridge that crossed the Salt Fork River was a magical road full of adventure. The side of the road had a multitude of sand plum bushes and when they were ripe we picked buckets full of them for my mother to make the delicious plum butter (way better than apple butter) and plum jelly (a gourmet delight to this day. The adventure occurred when my buddy Milford Wheeler, me and his German Shepard Brownie (who later joined the K-9 Corps) when hunting along the river bank near Grimes Bridge. We had no weapons but used Brownie for the catch dog. As I said it was in the late thirties and money was tight. If we could catch a fur bearing animal we could take the carcass to Reed's Hatchery and they would give us cash money for it. The high dollar animals were skunks and raccoons. Brownie chased two skunks into a sandy den hole on the river bank. He dug down into the hole and then went after them. He almost immediately backed out of the hole because he had gotten a mouth full of skunk juice. It was the first time (and the last time) I ever saw a dog hawk and spit. Then he headed for a clump of buffalo grass and proceeded to bite it off and chew it. Milford solved the problem of how to capture the skunks by wrapping a piece of barbed wire around a stick putting it in the hole twisting it in the skunks fur and dragging the out one by one. When we got them out we dispatched them by hitting them on the head. If you are overwhelmed by a powerful odor after awhile it overloads your smelling senses and you can't smell it. We proudly headed home with the skunks in a gunny sack feeling like rich men since skunks brought $2.50 apiece. We were already figuring how many movies and popcorn it would buy. Unfortunately when we reached home we were immediately declared Persona Non Grata and banished to the garage to strip down shoes and all

BIll Barker - 2008-02-18 08:49:20

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