Raccoons and Conflict Management: A Case Study

It was Two A.M. on a dark morning in suburban Denver. I had been in conflict with a family of five raccoons. In formal conflict management terminology, what we had was a conflict of needs. They needed my plums. I needed them to be gone. I tried reasoning with them: “When you eat my plums, I feel put upon, because they are my plums and you steal them”.

This had not worked. So, on this dark morning, I heard them chirping away with that happy, full-bellied chirp for which they are notorious.

I live next to a large piece of open space, thriving with foxes, coyotes, owls, geese, hawks, exotic water birds passing through, AND RACCOONS. The law is clear. Humans may not kill these residents. We may harass them, however, if they invade our tax-paid pieces of property and irritate us. 

The point needs to be made: I like raccoons. They are intelligent, playful (mostly), industrious, family-values kinds of animals. They are also not aggressive, unless rabid or cornered. I thought.

They also taste good, if cooked by Danny “Stick” and/or Tanya Thomason. Stick has passed away and Tanya lives in Kentucky, so even if I broke the law it would be a waste.

But on this morning I had had enough. I jumped out of bed and crept down the stairs, careful not to wake my cat—he’s a grumpy SOB when awakened—and grabbed my weapon of choice. What I figured was that the sight of me sans pants, shirt, or toupee, holding my trusty Daisy-Red-Ryder-BB gun-with-the-compass-on-the-stock would cause this family sufficient harassment as to cause them to go elsewhere.

With gun and flashlight in hand, I crept onto the deck. Neighbors were all asleep, or light-less anyway. I saw a big raccoon in the tree and shot three shots. At least two offended him enough that he scampered down. Noise of others following suit caused me pause, but I just kept cocking and shooting at large objects in the tree, and bright eyes lit by my flashlight, then at large objects and eyes on the deck.

Then the large objects disappeared. The raccoons were now under the deck.

OK, now what? I had visions of little hand-like claws reaching up through the deck cracks to get at my toes, but brave Kentucky hunter that I am, I stood my ground, quietly, with toes upturned.

Then, at the end of my flashlight’s beam I saw five raccoons. A little chill went up my spine. My deck sets close to the ground. The raccoons were standing on this ground, so what I really saw was five pairs of eyes and five pairs of front paws gripping the edge of the deck. The five had spread out down the short side of the deck, and around the corner onto the long side. Yes, these non-aggressive family-values animals were trying to surround me. They seemed pissed, and poised to take care of this plum-eating-interruptus-fool.

I quickly cocked and shot as fast as I could, expecting the worst, and escaped through the sliding doors back into the safety of my suburban middle class home.

I wonder if my daddy, Stick, Tanya, and my Kentucky hunting friends, and their hounds, are laughing. I know I heard what sounded like laughter from my deck, through the plate glass, as I reached for a shot of bourbon to calm my nerves.

In conflict management theory, conflicts of needs may be resolved when one party’s needs are shown to be more important than the other’s. It was clear to me in this instance who’s needs were greatest.

I don’t like conflict.

50th High School Reunion

In the Spring of 1962, 40 of my friends and I set out from Providence High School to make a place for ourselves in the world. In the Summer of 2012, some of us will gather, as we have gathered every five years since 1962, to celebrate one another, catch up, tell stories, and remember the half a Century that has passed since we left P.H.S. 

I do wonder why people go to their high school reunions. I have friends who have never been to one and vow never to go to one.

I know why I go. It’s a life marker for me. I really don’t think about Billy Wilson, for example, as I go through my normal everyday life, year after year. However, every five years, he, and Dorris Burton, and several other people who I really liked in high school, seldom saw after high school, and who I will never see again because they have passed away, come barreling into my consciousness, full-blown, in 3-D and color, as they were in the Spring of 1962.

Over the years I have watched the folks who did come the reunions grow and develop, and become successful in that world into which we were thrown in 1962. I’ve also watched them suffer the pains of divorce, death of loved ones, and debilitating diseases. Every five years, this group of people gets a snapshot of our friends living their lives.

We knew each other when most of us had outhouses, and we remember those cold, cold winter mornings that taught us about bladder control if nothing else. We remember coal: having to get the clinkers out of the stove in the mornings, take the ashes outside and bring in new buckets.  Many of us had coal miners as fathers. At least one of us had a coal mining mother. Several of us made careers related to coal.

We now share memories of people. All of us remember Mrs. Hooks, and Mr. Lane, and Mrs. Crowe, and Mrs. Rayburn, and Mrs. Dorris. We remember the old gym into which we were packed to watch old black and white movies, hear recitals, attend pep rallies. We remember football, basketball, baseball, and track, at which several members of the class of 1962 excelled.

We remember band teacher Joe Allen, who came to town and became a real-life Music Man, transforming the school and the town, generating excitement and parental involvement on a grand scale.

These are people with whom I spent significant time from about 1950 through 1962. Hell, that’s longer than some marriages last.

I find that I don’t have much in common with most of my classmates anymore. What we do have in common, however, I believe is important: memories of a time shared during those formative years of our lives. I use the reunions to review my current life in light of those memories. It's sort of a present-day reality check using a shared rear view mirror. 

This time we will be reviewing memory snapshots in a rear view mirror that spans half a Century. 

When all is said and done, I go to high school reunions because I like these people. I like who they were and who they have become, and spending a day or so with them every five years makes me feel good.

That is why, in the Summer of 2012, I will drive back to Kentucky, and back in time to 1962 and the twelve years before that, to share stories and memories with people who were there with me “in the olden days”.

Kentucky Poetry: Portrait Exercises

My Eyes 2012

Look into my eyes.

Do not look at the wrinkled skin,

The sagging muscles,

The stained teeth.

Look into my eyes.

Remove the layered curtains.

Can you see the young man in there,

The idealist,

The true believer.

Can you see that glow

That comes from the belief

That time is on his side?

I look into my eyes

From the inside.

I turn thin time layers

One by one, like plastic overlays

On some old biology textbook

I  fan my life out behind me.

Saturday Afternoon, Kentucky 1949

Gooseberries, green with curious veins.

Sweet and tart.

Like childhood scenes.

My grandfather swinging his cane.

Mad with dementia.

He chasing old man demons,

And me.

Me running, unafraid of demons or him,

But aware of the cane.

An old lady sits on a porch, 

Churning butter.

Behind her sets an icebox.

Big chunks of melting ice smelling cold and fresh.

With a hint of cigarette smoke.

Church Sunday Morning, Kentucky 1950

Orange flowers filling ditches.

Sunny and bright,

The weather and me.

Gravel crunches beneath my new shoes.

In my Sunday go to meetin' clothes

I am beautifully alone

For a mile or so.

Fellowship begins in the basement

In the small brick church.

Coffee and cigarettes

Not for me, yet.

Upstairs, organ music gently blends with

The rustle of cloth as people settle.

My Daddy, Uncle Clay and Dinner Buckets

In the mid-1950s, my father and his brother, Uncle Clay, used to sit around in the yard and talk about the world, the old days, politics, and their work in the mines. Both had spent decades working underground, mining a seam of coal that ran from Southern Illinois through Western Kentucky, Southern Indiana, and Southern Ohio.

One of their mining themes had to do with dinner buckets, those aluminum containers that held their drinking water and a tray, that fit into the bucket like a double broiler, that held their lunches. They would look at me and say,  at various times in various contexts, “When your buddy empties his dinner bucket water, you empty yours too, don’t ask questions, just leave the mines. You find out what’s the matter when you get out of the mines.”

They said this with pride, and to them it was a matter of pride. And solidarity.

These were United Mine Workers of America people, for whom John L. Lewis was a small-d deity. Union people who believed strongly in the “rank and file”, not in Capitalism, not in union bosses (except for Lewis of course), not in company bosses. They believe in themselves, united.

My daddy and Uncle Clay were not Socialists. Coal miners are as close to being those U.S. “rugged individualists” that personify Capitalism as you can get. But they did realize that they were not alone; they had responsibilities, obligations, and allegiances to one another, even if they did not particularly like some of those “anothers”.

I wonder if this “us” attitude still exists in the workplace, or anywhere else in this country for that matter. For decades, our churches, priests/preachers, politicians, schools, and media have encouraged “me” generations. I wonder if this is good for folks like my daddy and Uncle Clay.

I’ve been a management professor and consultant for over 30 years and certainly know that companies/corporations are not inherently evil. Business owners, executives, and boards are not inherently evil. However, they all have a natural monetary, social, and psychological stake in their businesses that shape their perceptions and guide their behaviors. In addition, they have industry colleagues with whom to pool resources and perceptions. And they still think of employees as costs.

I also know that employees of these companies/corporations are not inherently evil. Unlike their management colleagues, however, they do not come to the workplace with shared perceptions; they do not have natural monetary, social, and psychological stakes in the businesses in which they find themselves. And they still think of employers as bosses.

I am not a defender of capital-u unions. Labor unions, even the UMWA, have over the years become business organizations themselves, with executives driving them. Members frequently find themselves having to deal with two sets of bosses—company managers and union managers—and two sets of political influences.

I do know, however, that a person like my daddy, one man, not well educated, standing by himself, no matter how good, strong, or God fearing he might be, cannot hold his ground against a billionaire business owner who thinks of him as a cost. Only by joining with his colleagues, whether he likes them or not, does he stand a chance of predictably being able to feed his kids, keep them in school, and stand up for his political convictions, whatever they may be.

So, I wonder how the “we” gets re-ignited as a concept in the workplace and in communities. I wonder how we erode the notion that working together is un-American.

But most of all, I wonder who I trust well enough that when she throws the water out of her dinner bucket, I will throw mine out too and follow her out of the mines?