Possum Tales

This is just too good not to tell. Name omitted to protect the innocent.

He had to get up at 3:00 am Monday morning. Now that is not a friendly time of day to rise and shine, and he was afraid he might oversleep. As it turned out, he didn't need to worry.

At 2:44 am, he heard a commotion on his back porch, right outside his bedroom window. He knew right away what it was--a possum in the bag of dog food he left on the porch. He'd meant to move it after a possum had gotten in it a few nights before, but like I said, it had been a tough weekend. He'd taken a shot at that possum and winged it. Had it come back for more?

He grabbed his .22 and crept to the door. The possum must have heard the door creak because it scrambled out of the bag so fast he thought it was going to run inside the house, so he slammed the door fast. Through the window he saw the possum waddling off. He walked out onto the porch and took aim.

But...were there two possums? Apparently so. He could see the rotund behind of the one that had been in the dog food bag waddling off into the night. The other one, however, was just standing still and staring at him. He could see its eyes gleaming in the dark, that peculiar orange glow so familiar in headlights. He decided that the one looking at him was a) more likely to take the offensive and attack, and b) an easier target than the quickly vanishing hiney of the other possum.

So he took careful aim and hit it right between the eyes. When he walked over to inspect, he found that his aim had been perfect--he had perfectly shot the kids' kickball.

(Did you know that the reason animal's eyes shine in the dark is something called the Tapetum lucidum, more commonly called eyeshine? I just learned that myself as I researched to be sure I had the right color for the possum's eyes.)

Another thing about possums: you should always take one on a hiking trip with you. If he can catch one out and about at night, just shine a light on him and he'll play possum. You can pick him up and stuff him into a backpack and he'll travel comfortably all day.

Why would you want to take a possum hiking? Well, if you get lost, all you have to do is take the backpack off your back, open it, and wait. Sooner or later the possum will come ambling out and will make a beeline for the nearest road.

Ouch.

Then there is the story of the best coon and possum dog anyone ever heard of. It was a hound that just had to be shown a skinning board, and that dog bring in a possum or raccoon with a hide exactly the right size to fit the board. But one day the dog didn't come home. After three days its owner went looking for his favorite dog. He found him way back up on a ridge looking just worn out and pitiful. He had to carry the dog home, that's how bad he was. But when he got to the house, he found out the cause of the trouble. Seems his wife had been doing laundry and had left the ironing board leaning against the house. The dog was looking for a coon or possum big enough to fit the ironing board. Poor thing. We grow 'em big in West Virginia, but not that big.

picture by Bob Gress

Other possum stories you might like:

A Brer Possum tale about how he gets in trouble with a snake, told by one of America's finest storytellers, Jackie Torrence. She is gone but her stories and legend live on.

Brer Possum gets in trouble again, this time with Brer Rabbit, in Mr. Rabbit Nibbles Up the Butter.

Why the Possum's Tale is Bare was one of the first stories I learned as a storyteller, and it's still fun to tell.

De New Han' An old tale collected in the South in 1871 is told in dialect.

Ever wondered Why the Possum Has a Pouch? Find out in this story. Or Why Possum Has a Large Mouth? Click and learn!

You can find a flannelboard story about a coyote and a possum in Spanish at this site.

Lots of possum lore in this article that someone has kindly scanned into the computer and shared with all of us. Don't you love people like that?

Urban possums? Not an urban legend, apparently.

If you prefer your possum on the dinner table, you can find out how to cook it at Chow.com .

(I kid you not.) And you can read about one family's possum meal at Truth and Progress. A true story and they lived to tell the tale.

I think I'm about possumed out. Got any possum tales of your own to share?

A Possum Tale

A conversation on Storytell reminded me of this less-than-stellar moment in my dogs' history:

Two years ago Larry was working away from home. My youngest son Tommy was still living at home, but one evening while he was out, there was an awful ruckus down in the chicken house.

"Shoot!" I said. It was dark and cold and raining and I did not want to drag out in the bad weather to see what the problem was. So I walked out on the deck and hollered. All got quiet and I went back to the fireside and my book.

A few minutes later, the noise started again--chickens sqawking, flying around. I deaded the walk down there--it's a slippery slope literally and I have fallen more than once trying to negotiate that hill in the dark. So this time I took the old foxhorn, really a cowhorn made to use to cll foxhounds by my late neighbor Mr. Winemiller. I gave it a mighty blow and instantly the ruckus stopped. I went back inside--but of course as soon as I closed the door, hens started squawking.

I sighed. Where were my dogs? They are usually on to anything stirring around the place but on this cold wet night they were nowhere in sight. I didn't have a flashlight that worked so I grabbed my car keys and went out to the car. I moved it to a spot where I could see in the chicken yard, but there was nothing moving except one soaked hen (and a sorrier sight there can't be except for a wet cat).


Everything was quiet once again and I went inside. But within minutes, I had to go back out. This time I moved the car again, and in the light of the headlights I gingerly picked my way down to the coop. When I got there, I shouted, "What the hell's going on in there?" (I was cussin' agravated by this time.)


At that moment out the chicken house door waddled a fat possum. He didn't pay me any mind, but this time I yelled loudly for my dogs, and lo and behold they came running. Tigger saw the possum and tore through the wire fence to get at him. But the possum--played possum. He dropped as dead as could be to the ground. Tigger sniffed a few times, looked at me in a disgusted way and came back through the fence.

Tigger the Intrepid Goofball

"Tigger, you dummy (Okay, I didn't say dummy) that possum isn't dead!" But he didn't listen at all.



"Raven, go git it!" Raven, my black Lab, tore through the fence; she apparently had more sense than the Golden, and grabbed that ol' possum and hauled him out of there. I closed the yard door to the coop and told Raven what a good girl she was. She wagged her tail--and dropped the possum!

Raven the Warrior Queen

So of course, Tigger picked it up and started prancing around and growling like he'd killed it. I groaned aloud then, because I knew what would happen--he'd carry it around a while, then get bored because it was unresponsive and drop it. The possum would bide his time and escape when the dogs left.

Since I don't shoot (being left-handed and right-eyed you can see why) I knew that possum had lived to see another day.