Skunk and Cow by Don Conner

In the early 1950's, my uncle J.W. Hylton, who lived just over the hill from us, got himself a television set, so almost every night I would walk across the hill in the dark and watch TV until all the stations closed down for the night. There was a fence across the top of the hill which
divided our property. We had a couple of cows on our side, and J.W. had a work horse who loved to catch you out in the field and he would run full speed at you, trying to get you to run (so he could chase you), but if you held your ground, "Dick" would come to a screeching halt right in front of your face.

So one night I was walking up the hill on J.W.'s side on a pitch black night, and all of a sudden, I hear Dick running at me (yes, in the dark!). Normally I would hold my ground but I was afraid he could not see me in time in the dark to stop, so I ran like a bat out of .... toward the wire fence.

The fence had a hole in it that I could bend over and step through. Well, I beat Dick to the fence, bent over and as my foot was coming down on the other side, I saw that it was about to come down on a skunk, who was already positioning himself to spray me. Somehow I managed to change my mementum in mid-air and miss the skunk, falling onto the ground on the far side of him in the process. As the skunk was repositioning
himself, I jumped up and started to run, only to fall right over one of our cows who was laying down asleep.

When granddaddy Hylton came back from milking the next morning, he said, "Whew! I don't know how in the world ole Betty got sprayed by a skunk. It like to have made me sick milking her!

I never told him how Betty came to be sprayed (and Mama threw the milk away for 2-3 days). And I started carrying a lantern when I went over to watch T.V.

Don Conner
Djconner19@cs.com