It's been a long day and I don;t feel well, so I went back to scanning the thousand or so photo's that came from the folks house.
I had no idea there were so many of us as kids.
I came across this one that 50 odd years later seems like yesterday...and it does serious damage to my reputation as a Mean SOB. c*
I decided I wanted to take up trapping. I couldn't afford steel traps in those days so I learned to make snares and box traps. The latter first.
Well, I hauled a half dozen box traps a few miles up river and baited them without putting the doors on. The next Saturday, I went back, baited them again and set the doors. I could hardly wait until Sunday morning. I just knew my new Coonskin Cap was waiting.
At daybreak I was on my way. I checked most of the traps which were empty and then I got to one the door was down.
I walked up and nudged it. Something hissed.
I figured I must have caught a ten pound snake.
I finally got the nerve up to empty the trap in a bag and there sat a possum grinning for all he was worth.
I just didn't have the heart to kill the ugly little thing so I picked it up by the tail and took it home. Everyone got a good laugh at the mighty trapper and at the end of the day, I let him go back to raiding trashcans.
I did get my coonskin cap later in the year but that possum will always stand out as my first catch.
(https://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa57/peternap/possum.jpg)
I think they're cute, Peter! One night a mama possum got run over - most of the babies that were riding on her back got killed. One was alive so I hand raised it - it was tiny, fit in my hand. At 1st it would hiss & show all its teeth & there's a whole lot of those sharp things :o But after holding it for awhile it went to sleep. From then on he'd just go to sleep in my hand. I bottle fed him, took him to work in a box w/a light to keep him warm. One of the ladies working there wouldn't go in the break room w/the possum there ???
I raised him until he was big & one day my BIL let him out in the back yard & he got away :( I cried for days whenever I'd think about him :-\ He was so cute & soft :)