A Woodpile, a Skunk, and Dynamite: Remembering the Good Old Days

I discussed (ranted, actually) about how educators are protecting children from tag, touch football, and other dangerous games in an earlier post.

Now, something completely different.

My wife's mother told her kids about the time a skunk got in the school's woodpile.

Kids had noticed the skunk while playing before school. They didn't want the skunk around. At some point, the skunk found shelter in a woodpile stacked against the wall of the school.

It was an impasse: The kids were determined to get the skunk out before school started, and the skunk was determined to stay in the comparative safety of the woodpile.

So, one of the students went home, came back with some dynamite and blasting caps, and planted a charge under the woodpile. After the blast the skunk, the woodpile, and some of the wall's paint, were gone.

I don't know what would happen after that unauthorized blasting on (and of) school property these days. Back then, the school authorities made the junior demolition squad paint the wall they'd damaged.