Flashback Friday - Skunks and Other Stinky Stuff

Leanna: You told me a story once about when your dad shot a skunk up at Jack Creek.
Grandma: He didn’t catch it. No. It came through camp and we all scattered. I don’t think Daddy was even there. I don’t remember for sure. But see we lived there all summer he worked for the forest service.
Daddy was the fire warden at the old ranger’s place. And we were supposed to bow and scrape to his (the ranger) wife. Can you imagine us kids bowing and scrapping? And Mama wasn’t much for bowing and scrapping either. Pretty independent gal.
Leanna: Was it just one summer that you lived up there?
Grandma: Yeah, it was the summer I was 8. That was when we camped up there.
Every time Daddy could get a …. You see he went from job to job and we always went with him. We lived in Union two or three different times. We lived down in south Union. I think that’s where we were living when he got the job upon the ranger station and we just shut up the house and went to…. well what happened was Daddy couldn’t get away from his work up there in the mountains and the old guy that run the drug store, Mr. Ferguson – he wasn’t any taller than I am, and “that” big around. He came to the house and told Mom that… It was awful hot in Union and something happened to the fish in Catherine Creek and that’s where Union got their city water and you’d turn on the water and you’d get dead fish. And we had neighbors with a well that us kids carried water from that well. Mama couldn’t even wash her clothes in that fishy water.
Anyway Mr. Ferguson came to the house and told Mama that Dad had sent words that he wanted us to go back up there with him. He (Mr. Ferguson) had a mine up that way somewhere. So Mama just threw some stuff in the suitcases and we went just right now. We got away from the stinky water and she was as bad as I am about liking to be out like that. Roughing it out there, cooking on the camp fire and so on didn’t bother her. I can’t remember if we had a camp fire, I think we did. But we had a camp stove. It was set up you know for a warden while he was working there in that area you know. The government furnished it – the forest service – so we didn’t have to move but just our clothes. Anyway there was 2 tents with a… they call it a fly –just a big piece of canvas between the two.
The ranger’s wife was a silly thing. They were up there.
But anyway I think we were sitting under that fly between the two tents you know out of the sun. And across the little…. You remember how Jack Creek comes down like this and makes a turn… Well our tent was right in that turn, that’s where the ranger station was.
Across that bridge came a skunk. That ranger’s wife nearly had a fit. But I don’t think he sprayed us. Mama tried to shut her up so the animal wouldn’t get excited you know. Let it get on its way. But I don’t remember him stinking the place up. I can see him waddling across that log with the boards nailed to it. OH dear, that woman just went straight up in the air. It’s a wonder she didn’t scare the poor skunk to death.