Skunk
Scott Mclean
My son reminded me of another tale or maybe tail?
One of our favorite games was to race our bikes. At the time our bikes were our do all atv and race car. Those of you familiar with the Cowiche area might know Mahoney road. It is a gravel road that drops from Naches Heights road to Pioneer road on the flats. It is chiefly downhill with one sharp curve after another. We would race on this. Due to me weighing more, gravity worked in my favor and gave me an advantage. Steve often did better on the flats but I owned Mahoney.
I’ve often touched on the idea that Steve got us into trouble. True, but I was guilty often enough. Back to the story. Steve suggested we race Mahoney. There were two places we could ride to and buy pop or candy with our sprinkler changing money. Wies corner hardware or the store on Naches Heights.
At the age of 11 or 12 you could actually buy shotgun shells or .22 ammo at the hardware then. People now might think that irresponsible but we didn’t have the problems that pop up today so maybe it wasn’t so bad.
Anyway, we were coming back from Naches Heights and I wasn’t really into racing that day so I let Steve tear out. I was just coasting down the hill and taking it easy. I came around the 2nd or 3rd curve and hit a noxious cloud.
Little brother had seen a skunk crossing the road (Hence the tail at the beginning!) and tried to run over it. He then got off his bike and started throwing rocks at it. That is the cloud I ran into. My eyes were watering and it was hard to breathe.
We headed home and started up the front steps. Mom got a whiff and told us to go stand in the sprinklers. It was 3 hours before she’d let us in the house to take a bath.
Thanks again little brother!
More later.