3215 Raccoon Palace

Sunday, April 10, 2011

No matter how good a friend is, they're going to hurt you every once in a while and you must forgive them for that.

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A few days ago, my neighbor George mentioned raccoons in my back yard. "They live in the 1950 Dodge buried in your bank."

Huh?

My back yard goes out fairly flat until it hits a steep cut that goes down to a tiny foot-wide creek that drains into the lake down the street. Then it goes up again to the yards of the people behind me. I was aware that someone in the past been dumping junk down the bank. George says the builder, when he tore out the little house that had been here, dumped a lot of the heavier material there, then filled over it to make my back yard. Standing on the bank, I could see cinder blocks, chunks of concrete, a rusted water heater, and several tires embedded in the bank. But a whole 1950 Dodge? You've GOT to be kidding!

George took me to a lower part of his yard, where I could see across the bank rather than down it, and sure enough, there's the top of a CAR sticking out of the dirt. You can look into the broken-out windshield, and see the steering wheel.

George says raccoons live in it, have been living in it for years.

Oh good grief!

The car:
It's half buried. You're looking at the driver's side roof and windshield, and you can see the hood to the right. (Does that look like a 1950 Dodge to you? It looks older to me, or more foreign, because it's so square. Maybe it's a truck?)

This next one illustrates why I can't see it from the top of the bank, in my yard. These photos were taken from George's yard.

This one is from the top of the bank, in my yard. Four tires, a water heater tank, and a chunk of foundation from the demolished house:

I own all the way to the top of the bank on the other side, so all that landfill is MINE! Joy. I can't wait for the local EPA to come and demand that I clean it up.