Not Readings

by Rick Dietrich

What did the Lord intend with skunks?

This week we’re actually moving into Staunton, where we’ve found a lovely Queen Ann house built in the 1880s on what was already known as Gospel Hill. I’ve been serving First Presbyterian Church, Staunton, since leaving Columbia Seminary mid-February. In our new house, we’re only half a block from the Presbyterian manse in which Woodrow Wilson was born. His father, Joseph Ruggles Wilson, was one of my predecessors at First. He served that congregation from 1854 to 1857, so, we have very few parishioners in common. In 1857 he moved his family, including young Thomas Woodrow, to Columbia, South Carolina, where he preached at First Presbyterian Church there and served on the faculty of . . . Columbia Seminary.

Until this week, we were living—Robin and I and the stupidest, best-hearted dog in the world, Por Si—on a generous friend’s farm over Afton Mountain in Nelson County. That’s where we ran into the skunk. Or the dog did. I only ran into the dog. Robin had the good sense to have been in Atlanta for the week.

Here’s the story in brief. We’d been letting the rambunctious Por Si out on his own in the early morning and in the late evening, one last romp and evacuation before bed. We’d been careful though, I thought, not to let him out too late, partly because we knew there were skunks in the area.

I think of skunks as nocturnal, and I guess that’s right. I have also, however, tended to think of them as late-night nocturnal, that is midnight to dawn creatures. Clearly, that’s not right. Because this night, I let Por Si out around ten.

I’ll have to say, before I go on, that it had not been his best day. Already, he had brought home from his early morning run a cow’s hoof, not completely fresh admittedly, but with the hair still on the shank. I took that away from him and went around on my way into work to see if I could find the “owner.” I didn’t, but one farmer I talked to— and who explained to me most patiently that it was not a “cow’s hoof,” as I had it, but: “It’s from a calf—I’d say about 350 pounds”— suspected it came from over the hill. He’d heard some rifle shots a few nights before. The calf was probably sick, but they still hadn’t buried it. “Some don’t,” apparently, though he always did. He launched into something between a learned disquisition and a tirade on buzzards.

Later, Por Si escaped his leash, when I was walking him down near the old school not far from the farm—we tried to keep him “in hand” during the day—and I had a heck of a time getting him corralled. Which is part of the reason I let him out on his own that night. I thought about walking him, but I didn’t want to deal again with the escape artist on the leash, or off it.

Nor, however, did I want to deal with him when he came back, a completely skunked dog. What did God intend with skunks?

I didn’t deal with him properly. I’ll have to admit that I couldn’t think what to do. And if any of you, dear readers, can think what to do, sitting there in the calm of your own wherever-you’re-sitting, let me add: it’s not so easy when you’re impaled by that odor. You think you know it from driving by a dead skunk along the highway? Multiply that by thirty. It is a powerful weapon; it works because it is actually frightening.

At any rate, this is what I did. I dragged the dog through the house and into the tub, where I washed him off with one large dose of liquid soap and one large dose of shampoo, neither of which made a dent in the stench, which was now on my shirt and my t-shirt, in my shirt and t-shirt and pants, and in my skin, and, especially, in—stuck in—my nostrils.

I shoved the dog in his crate and pushed the crate out on the back porch and tried to go to bed and to sleep.

Sleep proved a problem, however, because even though I’d showered, I still stunk. And the house stunk, though, I suspect now, that was not so much from dragging the dog through it as because the episode (Por Si vs. Pepe Le Pew) took place not too far away. At that point, I thought, for the first time, “Tomato juice.” Of course, there was none in the house. But there was a can of Campbell’s tomato bisque. I smeared some of that on my arms and chest and washed it off.

It did seem to help. I slept.

I got up early the next morning. The smell was still everywhere, though I’d burned candles till midnight the night before. (This did no good, incidentally. None!)

And I dragged Por Si out of his crate. I tied him to the clothesline pole, and I anointed him in tomato products, the bisque and a jar of spaghetti sauce, and a can of stewed tomatoes mixed up in a garden bucket. Using the pot-scrubber, I painted it on him and left it. I didn’t know it at the time, but apparently this is the proper procedure. I rinsed him. I painted a second coat, rinsed again.

I’ll have to say, it did make a difference. I’ll have to say as well, that two weeks later, which two weeks included two days at the vet—and another bath with ‘Skunk Off’—Por Si still stinks. It’s not horrible, but it’s still there.

I’ll say, too, and then I’ll leave the case, that for at least three days I could smell the skunk everywhere, even in Staunton, thirty miles away (probably twenty as the buzzard flies)—not because it was still on me (I have several affidavits to that effect)—but because it was, as I said, in my nostrils. It was in my sinuses. It was in my breathing.

I mean: what did God have in mind? Maybe your friend, Dee Wade, that “Natural Grace” guy could explain it in the next issue. Ask him about “Natural Disasters”.

Thanks again, O wisest of editors, for suggesting the subject of this column—even if I didn’t get to it. If you get over this way, come visit. I’ll take you out and show you where it happened.