When my family first started vacationing in the Northwoods in the mid 1960s, we spent a week each year in MERCER to visit relatives, friends and to fish. For that great week would stay at one resort for a few years and for some reason my farther would find another resort for the next 2 or 3 years. It’s possible dad wanted to fish new lakes and even though I never knew the reason, I never asked why we left one resort for another. Maybe each one had its pros and cons, but being a kid, I didn’t care where we stayed, I was just happy being in the Northwoods. I still remember each resort we stayed at and loved them all. I would say one of my favorites was BREEZY POINT RESORT (no longer) on Echo Lake just outside town of MERCER. We would return to this resort for 3 years and there were a couple of reasons this resort became my all-time favorite.

Upon our arrival that first year, the owner showed us where our cabin was located and proceeded to take us on a short tour of the resort. As we were walking, chipmunks were approaching all of us and we were told there were not afraid and love peanuts, adding they will even take the nuts out of our hands. You will learn soon; this was a big mistake. Also, during our introduction, the owner pointed out something my family never witnessed before, because the expression on my parents faces (amazing things you remember at age 8) was you have to be joking. This structure I’m referring to being a 6-stall community shower (remember this was in the early 1960s) that were maybe 20 yards from the front door of our cottage.

At the end of this tour (maybe 5 minutes) the owner said, I have to show you one more thing you might enjoy. As we followed him behind the showers, to our surprise there was a large wooden enclosure maybe 8-foot-tall,10-foot-deep and 20-foot-long with chicken wire on the front and sides. At this point, he introduced us to his pet, the fattest raccoon you ever seen named CHARLIE. I don’t know if he was 100% tame because we were told that Charlie would occasionally hiss at people if he felt threatened or startled him, but once he knew you, you could feed him treats. This is when he gave my sister and I a hand full of grapes and baby carrots and showed us how to present the treats to him. This being the first time I had ever hand feed a raccoon, you can imagine the smile on my face, and our mom and dad watched my sister and I feed Charlie (WITH THE OWNER) the first few times. After that our parents must have thought it was safe enough for us to do so and we were allowed to feed Charlie unsupervised as long as we washed our hands afterwards. This meaning dad would soon have to drive back to town to purchase bags of grapes and baby carrots.

Now, back to those chipmunks. Once we unpacked the car and settled into out residence for the week, we reminded our father about Charlie’s treats and to add peanuts to that list. Within an hour, upon his return with the goodies, my sister and I sat on the cabin’s porch handing peanuts to our new little friends. Dad even got in on the action and tried to get one of the fury creatures to take a peanut out of his shirt pocket. I don’t believe this act was achieved, but I do remember the little guy/gal was on his shoulder looking into the pocket. At one point, my sister and I devised a plan to line up the nuts hoping to get these cute rodents to follow our trail into the cottage. I will tell you; our plan was working tremendously until mom observed our intention and immediately put a stop to it. We all continued to feed the chipmunks (obviously outside of the cabin) for the rest of the week.

Because I was feeding all my new critter friends, I don’t have to tell you how fast that week passed. You know, being that young, I never thought about getting bit by any of them and I guess Charlie never felt he was threatened by us, because when this fat boy would see me coming, he would run over purring to wherever I stopped to take his treats out of my hand. Charlie the Raccoon is one of those Northwoods memories I will never forget and from an 8-year-old’s standpoint, feeding a semi-wild animal was the coolest thing and I couldn’t wait to return the following summer. Does anyone believe this would be allowed to happen today?  Did I have bad parent, because they let me feed Charlie alone? NOT AT ALL. I don’t know if anyone will get to see an animal in that kind of environment or have the chance to experience feeding a Charlie like I did, but for the next three years I got to make my new semi wild friend fatter.

Here are a few fun facts you might not know about Raccoons.
* They are very intelligent.
* Their masks are anti-glare.
* Can live over 15 years in captivity.
* Their paws are like small hands that can turn 180 degrees, allowing them to open latches, lids and even doorknobs.
* Even though I never saw Charlie do this, they usually wash their food before eating it, and I when Charlie purred, I didn’t know he could make over 50 noises.