Coonskin Cap

Every young man needs to know how to make a coonskin cap, and I really feel a bit left out in that it wasn't included in any of the coursework that I had as a child. I mean, how can you expect a person to grow up to be a responsible, self-respecting citizen without intimate knowledge of how to skin a coon and make a head covering? Honestly, it's a serious shortcoming in our educational system.

Rather, it's a shortcoming of the system that I was brought up through. Some parts of the country like Huntsville, Ark. still include special instruction on skinning animals it seems, but their program is not without its flaws. I must admit that when I first heard about this, I imagined that the idea would have a few inherent issues like parents and the general public crying out about the images of torture that would fill the children's minds, the ACLU trying to defend the rights of animals to keep their clothes on in a public school, and of course, the charges of violence breeding from such gruesome practices. I did not, however, anticipate the only real issue that seems to have been present: live animals.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21791520/

If you've read the article, then you know that an instructor at a Huntsville high school had been promised a raccoon for an animal skinning demonstration. Setting aside the wonder that you might still have at the idea of actually doing a skinning demonstration in school (it's really not that much different than a dissection is it?), ask yourself how you would react if you were the parent donating the raccoon. Would you expect the teacher to want (a) a live, possibly rabies infected, angry raccoon, (b) fresh roadkill from the road yonder that I drove on up on the way over, and by the way save me a drumstick and a gizzard, or (c) a humanely dispatched specimen for scientific study?

I'll grant you that that's a tough question to answer if you've never been in a class that was doing a skinning demonstration, but I think we can safely assume that a live raccoon was not the preferred option. Either they didn't have this class when that parent was in high school, or there were other issues with this parent and high school (I'm not saying they didn't finish; I'm just saying there might have been issues) because they brought a live raccoon to a skinning demonstration. What was the teacher going to do with a live raccoon?

Obviously, the lesson has to go on, so the raccoon needs to be dispatched. "What do we have lying around that we could use to accomplish that?" I imagine the teacher thought to himself. I'm sure he went down the list of possibilities quickly:

• Crack his furry little head on the corner of my desk. Nah, too bloody, and I don't want to slip on this tile floor.
  
• Just start cutting with the knife. Death'll catch up soon enough, and this class isn't for wimps.
  
• Run over it with my car. It'll be just like real life, but someone has to hold the bugger in place while I drive, and if I have to hear another lecture about torturing my students I'll scream.
  
• Shoot it with a nail gun. Doesn't everyone have one of these handy just in case they're given a live raccoon for a skinning demonstration?
  

While the rest of us are still thinking of the possibilities that never occurred to this teacher, he was busy loading the nail gun and putting the raccoon to rest (or prepping the material by causing the least possible damage; however you choose to look at it). Of course the school superintendent was quick to point out that, "It wasn't like he held a nail gun against the head of a cute little animal in front of the class." Well, that's a relief. For a minute there I thought this was an unusual teaching method.

The good news is that the teacher has been told not to kill animals on school grounds anymore, at least one lucky kid got to go home with a coonskin cap (with a slight hole just to the left of center), and the volunteer parent had first choice of the meat.

Okay, okay. That's not all in the story, but do you really think it didn't happen?