Ozzy Osbourne – "Bark at the Moon" (1983)

And when he finds who he’s looking for

Listen in awe and you’ll hear him

Bark at the moon

Legislators in my home state of Maryland apparently believe they can save the planet by banning the use of foam coffee cups and “to go” containers and allowing restaurants to provide plastic straws only when customers request them.  Really?

But in our neighboring state of Virginia – which is actually a commonwealth, not a state – legislators are keeping their eye on the prize and passing laws that really matter.  

Never on a Sunday . . . until now!

For example, thanks to Virginia’s solons, it’s now legal to hunt raccoons with dogs on Sundays.  (It’s about time!)

Sadly for Virginia hunters, it is still against the law to hunt deer or bears on Sundays.  But deer and bears aren’t nasty, rabies-filled little bastards who sneak into attics and pee on the ceiling until it becomes too weak to support their weight, and then come crashing down into your bedroom.  

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A Washington Post reporter recently accompanied an experienced hunter – I’ll call him “Glenn,” because that is his name – as he and his coonhound searched for raccoons in the Virginia woods late last Sunday night.  

In the old days, farmers were happy when Glenn knocked on their doors and asked if he could hunt on their farms – after all, raccoons are notorious chicken killers.  Raccoon pelts fetched as much as $25 back in the seventies, so Glenn went coon hunting as often as he could. 

Glenn and his coonhound

Today, no one’s buying pelts, and many of the farms in northern Virginia have been turned into subdivisions.  But Glenn still enjoys spending time in the woods with his hound, and he and his wife still eat raccoon meat – it’s “a little bit strongly, but not bad,” she says.

Glenn’s dog eventually treed a raccoon the night he went hunting with the Washington Post reporter, and Glenn dispatched the 20-pound male with a well-placed shot from his .22 rifle.  (By the way, raccoon males are known as boars, and females are sows – like pigs.) 

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Some animal-rights activists are appalled by Virginia’s decision to allow raccoon hunting on Sundays.

“The last thing that we need in a society wracked by violence is for yet another day of the week to be allotted for people who enjoy killing to go out into the woods and destroy animal families,” a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals spokesman told the Post.

But Glenn makes a compelling argument in favor of the new law.  “I can go get beer on Sunday and get drunk and kill you with my car.  I can go to the racetrack and lose my house,” he told the reporter. “Why can’t I go out in the woods with my dog and get a raccoon?”

Some of the people who have gone coon hunting with Glenn – which usually involves hours of slogging through the woods, sometimes in foul weather – think they know why Glenn spends so much time pursuing raccoons.

“They tell me that my wife must be ugly.” Glenn says. “They say, ‘Why would you be out here doing this unless you’ve got an ugly wife at home?’”

That's a good question – one which Glenn does not answer.

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Some of the folks living in the McMansions on the edge of the Virginia woods where Glenn looks for his quarry have tried to deal nicely with the raccoons who occasionally invade their attics.

One suburban couple tried blasting the varmint who invaded their home with Ozzy Osbourne.  “Do they really think playing music is going to bother that boar raccoon who’s found him a nice warm place to sleep and eat?” Glenn asked the Post reporter.

If you have a raccoon problem, I’d suggest going the .22 route.  But if you want to give the Ozzy Osbourne method a shot, I’d suggest playing “Bark at the Moon,” his 1983 single from the album of the same name.  

(I bet some of you are surprised that I’m not featuring the Beatles’ “Rocky Raccoon” in this post.  I thought about doing that, but decided to take a pass.  Like at least half the songs on the so-called “White Album” – which is officially titled The Beatles – “Rocky Raccoon” sucks bigtime.)

Click here to listen to “Bark at the Moon.”

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: