How Does One Properly Inter A Coon? Or, Tail of a Coon Pat Mann   © Copyright 2023 by Pat Mann

Photo by Tim Umphreys on Unsplash

I received this email yesterday from a coffee buddy that moved from sunny Florida back to Indiana with a peculiar request.

Pat,

Had a funeral today for a coon. I forgot, "do you bury them with their tail up or down?" He insisted that my oak tree was his home, but I tried to convince him, he was wrong. It took about three days with a BB gun to convince him he needed to move on. When he did, he fell out of the tree and was mortally injured as he hit the ground.   Glad it's over .

 I replied with a true story from the distant past.

 Our youngest daughter had a white Persian kitten.

 Early one morning it was hit by a car in front of our house and dragged itself into the neighbors driveway across the street. The neighbor saw it and hid it before our daughter passed by on the way to school.
 
 That afternoon the neighbor told her about how he had found the kitten and located a nice box and said a prayer over the body before burying it in his back yard.

 She cried and we hoped she would soon be able to put it behind her.

 The following afternoon I was informed that she wished to have the remains exhumed and re-interned under the big tree in our back yard.

 Sooo, being the good father, I immediately grabbed my shovel and went looking for fresh dirt in the neighbors back yard. As luck would have it , I found an area of disturbed dirt.  On closer observation I saw that the excavation was about 6 inches in diameter (post hole digger). I went back home and found my garden trowel and started digging. First thing I came to was the tail.

 I'm not sure if this in the answer you requested, as I never attended mortuary school, but do hope it puts your mind at ease.