Telling on myself

[peternap]

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.

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.

[Sassy]

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    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