ump right into a story and tell it – with all the twists and turns having immediate impact. At other times, it is best to set the stage. This is one of those cases.

When our daughter was 8-years-old we obtained a golden retriever puppy so that she could grow up with a companion.

The American Kennel Club may not designate ‘stubbornness’ as a trait of that particular breed, but it should. A family joke is that ‘Lucky’ was lucky that I didn’t take him to the pound (of course, that would never happen). Let’s just say that he tries our patience.

The Big Guy, as we call him, had wormed his way into our hearts and became a family dog. Our six-year-old cowdog, ‘Bella,’ wasn’t too pleased but came to tolerate him and practice her blue-heeler skills on him. 

Routines are very important in our family. We have routines for just about everything, including walking out to the bus stop in the morning. We live off the road so it’s about a 300-yard walk to catch the school bus.

The walk usually includes some type of word game or playing catch with a softball or my wife and daughter singing a duet. There are also standard phrases: “hugs and kisses” means that the bus is coming around the curve; “be strong and don’t let anyone bully you” is another standard line, and finally there is a blessing. 

That is how it normally goes.

However, Lucky had a bad case of upset tummy the night prior and redeposited his stomach contents three times. He awoke his old self but was acting kind of needy. So when my daughter asked if we could take him down to the bus stop, I relented, against my better judgment.

We had, maybe two or three times, previously taken our cowdog down to the bus stop, but it was a disaster. That 40-pound cowdog evidently thought the school bus was eating our daughter and went berserk. It was all I could do to keep her restrained.

Lucky was a different fellow. He was normally happy to sit with us and just be. I had noticed, however, that Bella had been taking him into the pasture, hopefully teaching him how to react to the many creatures in Wood County.

On this particular day, the sky was just lightening and one could begin to make out contrast pretty well. My daughter was sitting on my right boot, and my 70-pound retriever was sitting on my left boot. The bus was about two minutes out.

My daughter was just looking around, as kids do. Then she said in a surprisingly calm tone, “Daddy, I think there is a skunk over there and he is headed this way.” 

Sure enough. The skunk was behind us, on our starboard quarter coming out of a stand of trees. Of course, when I turned around, Mr. Woo-woo (one of our other names for our retriever) also turned around.

The skunk was nonchalantly headed directly to join us at the bus stop, but at least for now with his tail down.

Then, our 70-pound ball of orange fur decided to back out of his collar and go play with that small thing clearing the trees. 

Lucky bounced around back and forth, side-to-side as he does when playing with the cows in the pasture next door. The skunk was not inclined to play. The result was predictable.

After fake-charging a couple of times, our little black and white neighbor took aim and used chemical warfare on Lucky.

The cloud enveloped the bus stop. We retreated – no, that is too orderly, we fled – south down the county road.

Lucky had had enough. Foaming at the mouth and slinging it all over the show, he naturally returned to me. Thankfully, just then the bus arrived and picked up our daughter from our fallback position.

The skunk had vanished, likely into the culvert under our drive. We carefully withdrew to the garden where we spent 30 minutes hosing down the dog. He thought it was great fun. Our own sanitization protocol followed for my wife and I.

Ah, country living. Who in East Texas doesn’t have a good skunk story? We added this one to our family lore.