As I suggested in Chapter 14, my freshman year of high school was something of a disaster. My social life tanked, dance class sucked, my political aspirations were reduced to running a friend’s campaign for class president, and my success in sports was mediocre, at best. My short legs and I suffered through a season of cross country running where I was lucky to finish in the middle of the pack.
Things had to improve.
Do you remember your first date in high school? Was it a roaring success, so-so, or an unmitigated disaster? How about off-the-scale weird? That describes mine. I had a double date with Paula, Mom and Boyfriend. And I ran over a skunk. It happened during the summer between my freshman and sophomore year.
It started with Paula calling me. There was no way I would have called her. Girls still left me quaking in my tennis shoes. ‘Curt, would you like to go to dinner with me in Sutter Creek?’ Sutter creek was a town in Amador County, about 20 miles away from Diamond Springs over curvy Highway 49. It would be a double date with her mother and her boyfriend. That seemed strange, but somebody had to drive. How could I say no…
I remember very little about the drive or dinner— other than it was at an Italian restaurant. After we had our fill of spaghetti and conversation, we returned to the car. I had visions of sitting in the back and snuggling up with Paula on the way back to Diamond.
Mom and Boyfriend had another idea. They hopped into the back seat and promptly told me, “You can drive home, Curt!” Like they were offering me the opportunity of a life time. It did away with my bold plans. But there was more…
“Um,” I noted nervously, “I only have a learner’s permit.”
“That’s okay, it will be good practice,” Mom jumped in before I could add that I had only obtained it four days before.
Paula, meanwhile, was waiting for me to open the door for her on the passenger side of the car. It was a plot. She gave me a dazzling smile— and my options dropped to zero. Any further hesitation would be ‘unmanly.’ After doing the gentlemanly thing for Paula, I dutifully climbed into the driver’s seat and miraculously found the keyhole and lights. Gear grinding got us out of town and onto the open road. I breathed an audible sigh of relief. It was short lived. We had just made it past the small town of Plymouth and were on our way down to the Consumnes River when I ran over the skunk.
If you drive a lot on country roads in skunk country, you’ve probably noticed that dead skunks are a significant part of road kill. It goes beyond the fact that they are easily recognized by their smell. There really are lots of them. The primary reason for this is that they believe they are omnipotent. Who in his right mind will hassle a skunk? It’s like petting a porcupine or teasing a rhino.
Unfortunately, skunks fail to recognize the damage a 3000-pound vehicle can do, and how difficult it is to stop, or even swerve when traveling 60 miles per hour or more. Last, but far from least, they don’t realize how easily drivers become distracted. A teenage boy just learning how to drive with an attractive girl sitting next to him is an excellent example.
While my encounter with the skunk was in the summer, the most likely time to find them crossing the road is in late winter or early spring. This is when the males come out of hibernation and go in search of true love, or, at least, sex. The Loony Tunes cartoon character of yore, Pepé Le Pew comes to mind. Skunks are willing to travel 4-6 miles to find a hot date. This often means crossing a road with a focus that has nothing to do with fast moving vehicles. Not being able to see clearly beyond 10 feet doesn’t help either. It’s a disaster waiting to happen. And it may all be for naught. Females often reject would-be suitors as poor material for contributing sperm for future generations, or for some other skunk-ish reason. The rejection is brutal. They have a particularly potent form of spray they reserve for the purpose. “Try to climb on me. Ha. Take that you skunk!”
The skunk I ran over had a similar reaction. He reeked revenge in his final seconds by becoming a virtuoso of glandular activity.
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Boyfriend said as the first powerful whiffs of eau de skunk came blasting through the air vents. “It happens all of the time.”
“Yeah, sure,” I mumbled to myself through tongue-biting teeth, “young men always run down skunks on first dates, especially first dates with Mom and Boyfriend along.”
Fortunately, I made it home without further incident.
One might assume that running over the skunk would have ended my relationship with Paula. But there was one more date. It was a testimony to how much Paula’s mother was committed to the relationship that she loaned us her car. I drove it illegally on my learner’s permit. Paula and I went on an old-fashioned picnic to Buck’s Bar, a 49er-mining site on the Consumnes River. I actually had a young woman, out in the woods, alone. Talk about fantasy. As far as I can recall though, and I would recall otherwise, I behaved myself disgustingly well. So did Paula.
Fridays Post: A Pear Pickers Guide to Happiness.
Wandering through Time and Place 