I don’t remember what color the dog was or its breed, or even its precise size. What I do seem to remember is that it was a boy dog and I will not go into details as to how I arrived at that conclusion.

Yes, size, color, breed, all seem to blur in that Cro-Magnon era of my youth but the two things that seem to stand out in startling detail are lots of teeth and lots of blood. The dog’s teeth and my blood.

If a dog were to bite me today, contrary to my Christian upbringing, I would grab the offended member, (my hand, not the dog) and while dancing an interesting little two step jig I would repeat a particular English expletive exactly three times, with great enthusiasm I might add, ‘Darn!, Darn!, Darn!’

At the time of that particular bite I was six or seven and forbidden upon pain of excommunication to use such horrific language therefore I gripped the bitten, bloody wound and screamed the one four letter word allowed under the circumstances, ‘MAMA!’

And that brings back wonderful memories of the possum, which as I remember was, like the dog, also a male.

Oh well, I caught this big possum and decided to train it to jump through flaming hoops, walk on a tight wire, balance on a ball and all of that neat circus stuff.

I could just see the giant bill boards advertising my act, ‘COME ONE, COME ALL! SEE THE INCREDIBLY BRAVE, HEROIC BOY AND THE FEROCIOUS, MAN EATING POSSOM!’

Oh yes, a wonderful thing is the imagination.

On that long ago day I decided to start Killer’s training with a simple test of his climbing ability. I was obviously learning at this time for I was doing my best to stay away from killers, ’sharp and pointy teeth’.

I placed him on the trunk of the plum tree and he just hung there snarling and drooling like any normal schizoid possum.

Being of a somewhat discerning mind I saw that killer needed some persuasion so I put my right hand on his skinny bottom and pushed. I must say that if you are ever tempted to push a possum up a plum tree you would be well advised to pay close attention to the end with all of those sharp and pointy teeth.

Having never heard the saying, ‘the devil is in the details.’ I disregarded all of the subsequent snarling and drooling as well as the teeth and give killer another prod on the posterior.

Natsy things possoms, they simply can’t be trusted. That miserable beast grabbed me on the right hand between the thumb and the forefinger, squeezed his eyes shut and commenced chewing.

Again I was in fine voice as I screamed that magical word that had bought salvation so many times before, ‘MAMA!’

Mama came running, took one look and immediately knew exactly what had to be done.
She picked up a rock and smacked the possum on top of the head having obviously missed the fact that my hand was gripped tightly between the beast’s jaws.

That possum just grinned fiendishly and bit harder and every time mama hit him she drove those teeth in like so many sixteen penny spikes.

As mama belabored the possum she kept repeating the phrase, ‘Stupid animal!’ over and over again until, after about the tenth time I was beginning to think that she was not talking about the possum.

Eventually the possum let go, climbed the tree and began eating plums.

After much deliberation I have arrived at the conclusion that children should not be exposed to possums or parents for their first twenty one years.

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