In 1950 (I think it was) my brothers and I wanted to go to Dad’s deer camp, so the Saturday after Thanksgiving Mom loaded all three of us into the car and away we went. Mom said the road was icy in spots. As brothers often do, we fought a bit on the way. Mom was afraid our activity would rock the car off the road.
Mom said years later that the ride was not a fun ride for her. We were old enough then to understand and beg a bit for forgiveness.
At camp, the weather obviously was cold, and had been cold for a while.
I don’t know whether Mom or Dad had the bright idea of cutting down a frozen buck, leaning it head-first against a tree, and then having all three of us pile on, which we did willingly. Nice antlers on the buck. I assume Dad shot the buck. He shot a lot of them in the 1940s and 1950s.
Mom ‘just happened’ to have a camera handy and recorded us for posterity, whether or not posterity thought it was a good idea. I imagine she giggled while taking the photo. She was good at taking photos of a slightly goofy nature. (No, I will not show you a photo of me sitting in a square tub in our backyard in the middle of summer. But it exists.)
Jon sits on the buck’s shoulders. He was 5. Lee is in the middle. He was 3. Bespectacled me anchors the back end. I was 7. Yes, I outpaced both of them in growth rate, by quite a bunch, for years.
Do I love this photo? Indeed I do. So does Lee. Jon is deceased. He died in a one-car crash when he was 23. I’ll tell you a lot about him in future posts. Things happened to him. A lot, and frequently. But he was a great brother and one hell of a shot at deer, coyotes and birds that flew through the air.