HISTORY OF PASCO COUNTY

Lacoochee

Billy Goat Gruff

By J. W. HUNNICUTT

It seemed like a good idea at the time for me to acquire some life lessons by taking on the responsibility of raising a goat. I already had a pen full of chickens for a 4H project and had demonstrated I could handle that.

Brownie was a young kid, full of life and rambunctious, who fit in with my dog, Sonny, and me. His enthusiasm got him into trouble right away. One day Brownie, Sonny and I were involved in an exuberant game of chase and Brownie ran under the clothesline pulling most of Mother’s newly washed laundry onto the ground. That day I saw a side of my mother I had not seen previously.

A few weeks later I was in the house and Brownie was looking for me. He butted in the screen door and came into the house. My mother’s alter ego surfaced again. When I came home from school a couple of days later the gate to Brownie’s pen was open and I was told he had run away. For the next couple of weeks, after I got home from school, Sonny and I would go through the woods calling Brownie.

My sister told me several years later that Brownie did not run away. My mother and dad had declared him to be incorrigible and sold him. Mother used the blood money to get a permanent from Gertie Tompkins in Webster.

Life lessons come in different forms.