Interesting: Phil Jay, NCOIC of the Airmen’s Service Club, Harlingen, TX Air Force Base, was also a member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians, according to this feature in The Linking Ring (Vol. 32, No. 12).
More interesting: Sgt. Phil Jay was, as of February 1953, training a skunk named Henry, hoping to include him as part of his magic act.
Most interesting: Henry the skunk apparently had had his mercaptan-emitting scent glands removed, and was purchased from an animal dealer in South Carolina. While still shy around humans, Henry was sufficiently domesticated to have developed “a taste for tidbits like sweet rolls and candy”.
I, for one, could happily watch an act that consisted almost entirely of a skunk eating candy on stage. (As for the advisability of feeding candy to a skunk – may I recommend the “Diet” section of the Wikipedia article on “Skunks as pets”? Within a few short paragraphs it includes references to all manner of skunk-centric wonders, including a food mix called Skunkie Delight, a skunk rescue organization called Skunk Haven, and a group called Florida Skunks as Pets.)
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