One morning, a man took his gun and his dog and he went hunting. He’d been out quite a while when he and his dog heard some rustling in the underbrush. They looked and spotted a possum heading home. Well, the dog dove right through a thicket following that possum. By the time the man had made his way through the thicket, the possum had sought refuge in a hollow log. There the man’s dog stood, at the big end of the log. He looked up at the man, then into the log, then up at the man again, and barked, as if to say, “Shall I go get it?”
The man sized up the log and thought: “I’m skinny. I can scoot into this log and get it myself.” So he sent his dog down to guard the small end of the log. The man leaned his gun up against a tree, got down on all fours, and crawled into the log.
He could hear the possum up ahead of him. The scurrying grew louder, so he knew he was gaining on it. But the log became a bit smaller, so he had to hunker down more, moving along on his elbows, but he could tell he was gaining on the possum, so he kept right on going. Then he stretched one arm out, and he grabbed the possum’s tail.
But just as he grabbed the possum’s tail, the possum scrunched up and pulled his tail right out of the man’s grasp. The man thought: “Oh no, you are not getting away from me that easy.” He pushed with his feet and pulled with his fingers, inched himself forward, and again he grabbed the possum’s tail.
This time he got a firm hold on that possum. “Gotcha! You’re not getting away from me now,” and the man started to back out of the log. It was then he made an important discovery: “I’m stuck. I am stuck.”
And sure enough, the man was indeed stuck. No matter how hard he tried, he could not back out of that log. All he could do was lay there thinking: “I am in big trouble. My wife always told me not to go hunting alone, but I’ve always told her hunting alone is the best way to make sure you won’t get shot. Now, here I am.
“No one knows I’m in here but my dog. That dog’s no Lassie dog; he’ll just go on home when he gets hungry.
“Even if someone happens to find my gun, they won’t think to look inside this log.
“My wife is going to be so mad at me. She’s going to think I’ve run off. But I’m going to die here. This is pitiful.
“Someday this log will disintegrate and here I’ll be, the skeleton of a man hanging on to the skeleton of a possum. It’s pathetic.”
He thought about all he had done during his life. Then he remembered how he had voted in the last presidential election, and that memory made him feel so small he just stood up and walked right out of that log.
My telling is retold from the story “Half Pint,”1 collected by Leonard Roberts from Walton T. Saylor of Whitley County, Kentucky, in 1956. Saylor reports that it was told by Uncle Charlie Day of Lida, Laurel County, Kentucky. “Half Pint” includes another incident establishing the intelligence of Charlie Day’s dog Old Trail (able to smell the trail of a rabbit from a year before and track it down) before the incident with the possum in the hollow log. In the collected story, Uncle Charlie thinks of the benefits of catching the possum before entering the log. Once stuck he recalls all the mean things he had done, with the topper being “he had crossed over and voted the democrat ticket.” Another version of the tale, collected by Lena Ratliff from Wrigley, Kentucky, in 1960 from Boon Hall, also from Wrigley, does not include politics. Instead the fellow simply thinks of all the little things he had done in his life, and those little things make him feel small so he shrinks.2
In my retelling, the hunter thinks about various aspects of his life, makes a reference to Lassie that baby boomers in my audience react to, and simply remembers how he voted in the last presidential election. As a life-long McGovern-style Democrat, I just could not have him feel bad about voting for the Democratic ticket, but I also wanted the story to be enjoyed by all, so not mentioning the specifics of his vote gives everyone in the audience room to interpret his actions their own way. Of course, I can also vary the election mentioned from presidential to gubernatorial, depending on the place and time of the telling. One of the most fun parts of telling the story in person is the time spent holding one arm outstretched beside my head, mimicking the position of the man in the log while recounting his past memories. Just holding that position also adds to the humor for the listeners.
A few years ago, I told this tale in Florida3 and met a former Kentuckian, Alson Adkins. Adkins was born in 1942 and grew up in McKee, Jackson County, Kentucky. He had heard a version of the story about 1953, when he spent some time traveling with his grandfather, visiting his grandfather’s customers. Alson said it was his grandfather’s farewell tour, but as a youngster he had not realized that his grandfather knew he was near death at the time. In the version Alson heard on that journey, a raccoon ran up inside a hollow tree and the person got stuck climbing up after it. When the man recalled voting for Adlai Stevenson for president, he felt so little he fell out.