Posted: January 13th, 2009 - 5:07pm by Doug Powell

When I was 17-years-old, my friend Dave and I hitchhiked to Grand Bend, Ontario, on Lake Huron, to go camping for a few days.

A camping neighbor went into town and bought us four cases of beer – for a fee. We asked for Pleasure Packs – Molson Canadian and Export – and he came back with something else. It contained a beer called 50. Horrible, horrible beer.

But we drank it.

I won’t go into all the sordid details – girlfriends visiting and not being happy, sleeping with the American girls, the dead raccoon – but we got kicked out of the park and then rechecked in under another name.

Did I mention the dead raccoon?

We didn’t eat it.

But I didn’t know about Missouri back then.

The Kansas City Star reported this morning,

He rolls into the parking lot of Leon's Thriftway in an old, maroon Impala with a trunk full of frozen meat. Raccoon — the other dark meat.

In five minutes, Montrose, Mo., trapper Larry Brownsberger is sold out in the lot at 39th Street and Kensington Avenue. Word has gotten around about how clean his frozen raccoon carcasses are. How nicely they’re tucked up in their brown butcher paper. How they almost look like a trussed turkey … or something.

Seriously, Dave and I drove a 1972 Impala to Grand Bend.

Raccoons go for $3 to $7 — each, not per pound — and will feed about five adults. Four, if they’re really hungry.

Those who dine on raccoon meat sound the same refrain: It's good eatin'. …

The meat isn’t USDA-inspected, and few state regulations apply, same as with deer and other game. No laws prevent trappers from selling raccoon carcasses.