Raccoon Elegy

I was just tickled pink when I learned that Bobby Kennedy Jr. had once collected a dead raccoon’s penis. According to Isabel Vincent in her new book, RFK Jr.: The Fall and Rise, Junior sprang from his car while his family waited inside, grabbed a knife, and got to work on the critter. The story went “viral” when the Arizona Democrat, Adelita Grijalva, deviously slipped it into a congressional hearing. This incident has been portrayed as proof that Junior is plumb nuts. But allow me to explain why all of this caterwauling doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.

First of all, I’ll bet it wasn’t that raccoon’s tallywhacker that fascinated Junior so much as the slender, curved bone inside it — a baculum, as the scientists call it. From what my daddy and granddaddy told me, a raccoon’s got one shaped like an “S.” This is so unusual that I can see why Junior would be grinning like a possum to possess one. Many of us stop at yard sales and fruit stands, but more than a few of us hit the brakes for roadkill, dead or almost alive. Why might this be so?

It turns out that these bones are treasured for all sorts of things in the South. According to Joanne O’Sullivan in her Book of Superstitious Stuff: Weird Happenings, Wacky Rites, Frightening Fears, Mysterious Myths & Other Bizarre Beliefs, in the folk-magic beliefs of this region, a raccoon’s penial bone is used as an amulet to attract love. And if they’re sharpened up, they can be converted into “Tennessee Toothpicks” — or “Texas Toothpicks,” as they’re known in the Lone Star State. Given his history as an environmentalist, Junior must have had it with our beautiful forests being destroyed to make billions of wooden toothpicks. Last of all, when you want to imbibe, these bones serve well as swizzle sticks to stir your bourbon.

Knowing how dang intelligent he is, I’ll bet Junior is also aware that the baculum has a female counterpart: the os clitoridis, or baubellum, a petite bone in something called the “clitoris.” Despite his steadfast opposition to DEI policies, you can bet your sweet bippy that he’s on the lookout for one of them baubellums too.

The masked bandit has an enduring history in American culture, especially in the South. Junior’s fascination with this beast is surely part and parcel of this tradition. For all the inspiration one could want, there’s Davy Crockett of Tennessee, who of course immortalized the coonskin cap. And don’t forget that our ninth president and a native son of Virginia, William Henry Harrison — ol’ Tippecanoe himself — was the very first presidential candidate to use a likeness of a raccoon’s pelt in a campaign. Let us hope that Junior is investigating the possibility of resurrecting this icon in a future campaign of his own.

So rather than knock this gentleman, I’ll say that there’s something admirable about a public figure who’s “authentic.” Just about all of those phonies in D.C. act so dang highfalutin’. They have risen above their station, and that sticks in my craw. Meanwhile, Junior is out there, gathering remains as he cruises the backroads and highways. To recast the words of the great songwriter Jimmie Driftwood, may Junior eternally “run through the briars and run through the brambles, and run through the bushes where a rabbit couldn’t go.” Thank the Good Lord that he rose to become our nation’s chief health official — despite having a worm in his brain.