Tricker #10- Final Voyage

      So we continued with Tricker at 1200 LaVista, some, through the summer of 1977 and she reentered the cage(at times) and led a somewhat reformed life.  After all, even a slow raccoon picks up  on the fact that if you dig a hole through a roof, you get taken on a dove hunt of no return, fraught with rattlesnakes, highway travel, mean dogs,and the like. So there was a rosy time of boy and raccoon united, the two were inseparable, and could be seen wrestling playfully in the yard as birds chirped,  the papayas and limes swelled on the trees, the gentle Valley breezes blew through the din of chicharras(a variety of LOUD locusts in the Valley), and all was good.                                                                                                                  John's boyhood friend, Ralph, had a slew of little brothers and sisters  who thought John, the raccoon tamer,  was a rock star.  They were dying to see this coon, and John was eager to oblige. They  lived in a little farm on Rooth Road northwest of McAllen.  John had spent many a happy weekend there, hunting, fishing, helping with the farm chores, trying to ride calves, riding horses, milking cows and generally having a blast, so he really wanted to give the tykes a full Tricker experience.  John at this point in his life was not good at  event planning though, and never thought about the two or three farm dogs that always ran loose around the place.  As they approached the house, John did finally consider the dogs and made the decision to get out and walk from a distance, you know, sort of sneak up  on the situation and hope boys got the dogs tied up.  Sure enough as the car arrived about a quarter-mile from the place, John and Tricker had just left the car and here come the dogs "a-runnin"!  As the border collie and cur dog blurs came  tearing across the open field he knew there was only one option,---he pulled off Tricker's harness, and let her run! She made a bee line for a citrus grove that was right next to a canal and was never seen again. ---She escaped the dogs, but was never seen again by John, Ralph or the sad little brothers and sisters who had been SO looking forward to a couple days with a coon. So it was all so anticlimactic,  ---poof gone like that!  Ralph said there were many raccoon tracks around the canal and groves so they figured she was as happy as could be!  She never showed up in town either,  --that we know of.  I guess she received the message and decided, somewhat on her terms to kick Us to the Curb!  It was an interesting twist of fate but this time it really worked.   Tricker's cage went on to house some bob white quail and  few others, but there was never another mid-sized omnivorous pet at 1200 La Vista!