41-1: - "BEAN". THE SKUNK
In my first year at St. Ben’s Seminary, (1946), there were many new sensations to experience - I had never been away from home for any length of time. I enjoyed my life there
— We carried many academic hours in our classes, especially Latin. Study was not difficult - we had Study Hall every evening for a couple of hours: we had no choice. Also, we studied French, History, English, Greek, Theology, and of course, Latin itself (St. Augustine’s “Confessions”, Virgil, Homer and his “Odyssey”). For someone who had had only one year of Latin in High School, it was a rather challenging prospect, but Fr. Augustine was a good Teacher of “Three Years of Latin in One Year”. So, Gene Lafleur, Les Prescott and I plowed into it (and went on, years later, to be ordained priests together).
One evening shortly after I entered, something happened after supper in the yard near the refectory. A group of the seminarians (there were 400 of us on campus), flushed out a mother skunk and her young ones. Naturally, these city boys didn’t quite get it - and the odor was present for everybody to put up with for the next few weeks. But in the confusion as they threw sticks at the skunks, she became separated from her two children, as they were badgered in the yard.
I saw my chance when the tiny skunks ran around and were scattered. I grabbed one of them, and put it away in my pocket. I knew that I had taken a chance, but there were many unusual pet animals among the students - squirrels which we trapped, flying squirrels, rabbits, (maybe snakes for all that I knew), and now a young skunk. I began to call him “Bean” - I fed him with a medicine dropper with milk and later on, table food as he grew. He was a good pet - very clean, cute and I took good care of him.
I wrote my family about Bean. They were delighted, and welcomed him. Daddy wrote that he knew a man who could “de-odorize” him, he said. So, the next time my family visited, they were introduced to Bean, and they took him home for the surgery for me. It all went well
- The job was done, and for all we knew, all was well.
Bean was welcomed at home (of course, one of the Seminary Prefects later informed me that I could not keep him because of the obvious danger). At home, we had a cat called Mabel who ruled the roost. Mom fed Mabel and Bean together in separate dishes. This went on for several months, and in the meantime, Bean grew to full stature. Daddy said it was so funny to see the reactions of people to a skunk running around our house. No mice or rats at all - Bean easily took care of that problem for us.
One evening, Mom fed the two as usual. When Mabel finished her food, she meandered over to Bean’s dish and promptly ate it up. Bean didn’t like that - he first stamped his front feet, and Mabel ate on, unconcerned; she completely ignored him. Another stamp, with no notice. And then chemical-biological warfare Bean turned, lifted up his tail, and let us know that he had not been totally de-odorized - Mabel got it full in the face.
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Mom told me later that Mabel froze, screamed, jumped high into the air, and then took off - and that’s the last any of us saw of Mabel to this day! The odor and the memory would linger on.
Somehow later on, Bean either died or disappeared; quite probably he met his own “pretendu” and began a family of his own, without disturbance from any other pet. We lived in an area not far from the fields and woods back of New Roads where skunks were not unusual to be seen (or smelled).
It was obvious that the man who had done the de-odorizing did not do a complete job. But Bean was a very nice pet to have and to play with; this was the only instance of his dropping any more of his bombs on anyone. He was not as nice as a pet crow would have been - but I was never able to catch a crow, so I made do with Bean.
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