On Squirrels

I have been reading Althouse's blog and she has been talking about squirrels. It reminds me of when I was in college. I went to Morehead State University (Home of that Great Band from Daniel Boone Land.) It is located in Morehead, Kentucky. It is a very small town in Eastern Kentucky. It is absolutely beautiful around the first week in October. At any rate, I digress. I met my first husband (and older boys father) at that college. He was from West Van Lear, Kentucky. Now, I am not surprised if most of you have not heard of West Van Lear. The population is about 4K. I think it is a riot that there is West Van Lear when there is a Van Lear and both towns are not much more than a stop light in a coal mining town.

So, on weekend we would occasionally visit either my parents house or his parents house in West Van Lear. They had indoor plumbing but the toilet was held up by a car jack so it didn't fall thru the floor. The town was horribly poor but I was young and in love. We are there one weekend for the Apple Festival or some such thing, and his mother decided to make Squirrel and Gravy. Now, I am from farm country where you mostly eat beef. I never even had rice until I was 20, it was always potatoes. So, the future mother-in-law gets the squirrel out of the freezer and shows it to me. She says "Look, isn't it cute, it still has a nut in it's mouth." Being the polite kid I was raised to be I ate the squirrel when she cooked it but it was difficult.

As I grew older and was in the Army I ate all kinds of different meat. I have had rattlesnake, bear, bat, rabbit, squirrel and mountain oysters. The mountain oysters aren't half bad regardless of what you hear. They taste like very lean very good pork chops.