Girls, I Got Somethin' to Show Ya

After living here in Kentucky for eight months, I thought I had seen just about all of the craziest, off the wall things possible. Alas, once again I was proven wrong.

Today I met a mountain man named Charlie and his pet coon.

Charlie's Destroyed Home

Charlie is the adult son of a woman whose home was referred to Housing by the Disaster Relief Program at CAP. My crew and I were sent out to assess the job which was in Teaberry, KY about an hour and twenty minutes from the office. We were going to assess the damage caused by a tornado that touched down in the area during the bad storms we had this weekend and then write up a cost estimate for repairs. The home was one of three trailers that we had been informed of that suffered damage. It had two broken windows and some damage to the roof - mainly shingles and a vent being torn off by the wind. From our view on the roof of the house, we had a perfect view of the lot behind the home where a trailer, or really what was left of one, and its contents had been strewn all over.The trailer which used to belong to Charlie had been turned completely over and landed upside down in the yard completely flattened. Thankfully, Charlie had been out when the tragedy occurred. Its roof had flown over the neighboring house and into a telephone pole across the street. We could clearly see the path the tornado had taken as the next trailer had suffered no damage whatsoever, but there was a distinct line through the hillside where full grown trees had been snapped in half like toothpicks.

Charlie, who is now staying with his mother, came over to us and informed us that he 'had something to show to us girls that we had never seen before and might never see again'. How could we resist an offer like that? So, Kate, Tony, and I followed Charlie up the hillside to the lot where his trailer used to sit. He lead us over to a large pen and proceeded to pull out a full grown, rather obese raccoon. Charlie, an avid coon hunter, had rescued the raccoon when it was only six days old when he was out hunting one day. As he raised it from infancy, the raccoon is quite tame and was licking Charlie's face and seemed completely at home in Charlie's arms and even let me and Kate pet him. Charlie is completely in love with his pet as is evidenced by the raccoon's well fed physique and his spacious home. Charlie also has a slew of coon dogs, three of which we were able to meet. Never lacking in creativity, Charlie told us that some of their names include: Bryant's Mountain Insane Night Train, Bryant's Mountain Crazy Daisy, and Queen Bee. Seeing this mountain man so happy holding his pet and telling us all about his coon dogs made me entertain for a brief moment the idea of my own pet coon. However, have no fear, I have not become so much of a mountain woman that I will be out trapping myself one any day soon.

Charlie and I with the Coon