Stories I tell

I tell stories.  Especially at bedtime.  Jaden's already heard them all.  And mostly they're mindless details about kindergarten and things I liked when I was his age and happenings at the farm.  Sometimes I can't think of anything so I tell him the stories my mom and dad told me about when they were little.   I tell some of these same stories to the kids.  When I am trying to contain them in their room.  And coax them to go to sleep.  Occasionally I negotiate.  And because I have the memory of a gold fish, some of the details are probably warped in my brain, I'm sure.  I tell them about the rattlesnack that almost slithered it's way into the basement in Belfry.  I tell them about Shelley's former pig and all it idiosynchracies.  One that gets told frequently is about Rackety, Opa's racoon pet.  This is how I remember the story.  So, there was a den of baby raccoons on the farm that lost their mother. What happened to her?  I don't remember.  I do remember that my grandpa picked one to be his.  Rackety and my grandpa aka Opa were inseparable.  However, Rackety hated Oma and I think the feeling was mutual.  He'd jump on the table and knock (genealogy) papers off the table.  She'd shoo him off but he had a temper (he was a wild animal!)  He also attacked her once in the Buffalo Truck on the drive home from Billings and she stopped at our house to attend to the bloody scratches.  Rackety went with Opa to work projects.  I remember him running around our yard while Opa built a wagon wheel entrance thing by the front door.  I remember Opa telling us that he'd stop at the convenience store and buy Rackety snacks and that he loved Fig Newtons.  We thought he treated him better than he treated us grandkids.  I also remember Opa saying that Rackety had developed a fondness for tobacco.  Evidently the sheet rockers working on my Aunt Melanie's house were leaving their cigarettes and chew laying around and Rackety kept getting into it.  Opa told us that later while talking to someone who had a packet of cigarettes in his front pocket, Rackety jumped from Opa who was holding him, grabbed the packet from the pocket, and ate all the cigarettes whole.  So that's it.  The story of the racoon addicted to nicotine.