I guess my Dad thought it would serve as a great anatomy lesson, of sorts, and he was right. I don’t remember what might have befallen the muskrat, but it was freshly dead. The details of its acquisition are hazy now, but I think we came across the deceased rodent towards the end of an afternoon family hike. My dad placed it on newspapers spread out in the back of the Volkswagen Squareback –amid mild exhortations of anguish from my mother- and we headed for home.
At age six, I had seen plenty of dead animals, but mostly from a distance, such as the back seat of a car on the highway. Yes, my siblings and I had buried a few pets by then, but that had involved an unreal, tender kind of dead. The muskrat, however, was quite dead in the most regular sense of the word. I immediately felt a sense of awe and curiosity at this up-close and personal touch with a dead thing.
My paternal grandfather lived for bird dogs and bird hunting, but other than that we hadn’t any hunting experience in the family. I had never killed an animal, or seen one killed, and I had never taken part in the butchering or “field dressing” of one. Although not a practicing hunter, my father was a keen outdoorsman, and had learned much along the way. This, in spite of “being too stubborn to listen when I should have,” as he often remarked with a shake of his head.
When we got home with our prize, my mother disappeared, but the rest of us followed the leader into the backyard. “Daddy says we’re going to skin a muskrat!” announced my big sister to the girl playing across the street. In no time there was a small knot of kids –mostly girls- surrounding our picnic table, my dad’s form towering above them, the laid-out muskrat the center of attention. With his sharpened, fixed-blade sheath knife my father proceeded to skin the muskrat. We were rapt with attention.
I’ll spare you the visceral details, even if you are one who eats meat or wears clothes made of animal skins, but my dad reverently carried out the process, and kept up a running commentary about the way the Indians utilized every part of the animal, leaving nothing to waste. Before long the muskrat skin was laid out flat on the table. The girls and I touched the soft fur and thought about the Indians.
The group of kids dispersed, absorbed into the neighborhood again, and my dad and I stretched the muskrat pelt out on a scrap of plywood. We tacked the skin to the board to dry. We may have done some other things to the hide, such as soak it in hot salty water, but that part wasn’t interesting enough for me to remember very well.
A few weeks went by as the hide dried. Or it could have been months–who knows, I was a boy distracted by other things. But along the way we hatched a plan for the fate of the muskrat pelt: We would sew it on the back of my beige J.C. Penney jacket. Now that would certainly make for a unique “fur coat!” Luckily – or not – my dad was expert at using the sewing machine – I can’t imagine my mother assisting us in such an endeavor – and the Kenmore was heavy-duty enough for the task.
It looked great, the dark chestnut-colored pelt spanning the back, and then some, of my jacket. My dad’s enthusiasm for the muskrat jacket – it was definitely his idea – had spilled over to me, and I couldn’t wait to wear it to Crystal Spring School.
My classmates were duly impressed with this most unusual of jackets, and I was the talk of the school for a day or so. I’m sure my dear teacher, Mrs. Hamilton, was not particularly enthused about this hillbilly distraction, but she was so wonderfully kind that she just smiled and indicated mild interest in my odd cloak. I guess she knew that soon enough the novelty would wear off and the muskrat jacket would be forgotten. Like all of my great teachers, she was always right, and this time was no exception. The muskrat skin jacket soon faded away and was completely forgotten.
Well, not quite of course – it has come back to life once again in this retelling . . . For life is not about remembering so much the bland and mundane, as it is celebrating the unique, curious and exotic adventures that thankfully bless our short number of days. I hope you have your own muskrat jacket or two that harkens hilariously from your past. Don’t forget to share those stories.
By John Robinson [email protected]