Bath County Memories

As told to me at least a dozen times by and old-time Virginia farmer when I worked for him in my early 20's, and recreated from my somewhat faulty memory banks:

It's a beautiful May Saturday morning in 1965. My buddy Earl and I were driving my VW beetle for a camping-fishing trip on the beautiful Bullpasture River. As we crested the last hill before dropping down into Williamsville, a young squirrel shot across the road. We heard the thump. Steve said,"What was that?".....I smiled, and said, "Dinner!"

I pulled over , got out, went back, picked the dead squirrel up by the tail, and laid him in the back of the car. As we proceeded down the road, I said,"I figure trout for breakfast, and fried squirrel and taters for dinner will do us right."

A minute later, we heard a sound in the back of the vehicle. Evidently I had not run over the squirrel, he had run into the side of my tire, and now he was awake. He was not pleased to be in the back seat of a car with two human beings up front.

Then, as they say, All Hell Broke Loose.....He made about four laps around that little car's interior, and ran up Earl's leg at one point.Earl's facial expression at this moment was priceless! I jerked the car off the road, Earl dove out one side, I dove out the other. The squirrel bounded off, apparently none the worse for wear. After the laughter subsided, I said, "You know, the other squirrels aren't going to believe him, when he tells them that story."

We got back in the car, and went fishin'. The trout and hash browns were delicious. I never really did like squirrel that much anyway.