KING of Bucks

Driving around, searching for a trailer park.  That's how I spent the first few hours of my day yesterday.  (jealous?) I was in full on I'M ABOVE THIS reporter mode (that self-serving toddler-pouting state of mind that comes after letting a story assignment change and scheduling snafus SHATTER my fragile reporter world into pieces) There may have been some mild mannered huffing and stomping. 


REAL mature. I know. I am not proud. (but hang on a second)


Back to the trailer park. 


After cruising town for awhile, trolling for a mobile home park with an owner who wanted to talk to us about storm shelters, we finally found someone who agreed to talk on camera.  (some days, making that happen is right up there with parting the Red Sea.)


So, we're driving up to Roger's office (the mobile home park owner). Again, because I'm in full on I AM BETTER THAN THIS reporter mode, I blow into this guy's office, ready to make this the quickest interview in the history of all interviews ever.  In the whole world.  


I take one look at Roger and think, oh boy.  Clearly we were delaying his hunting trip.  He was wearing a hunting vest with embroidered buck horns, hunting boots, and a trucker hat with "KING of BUCKS" blazing across it.  Why am I wasting my *precious* reporter time with wildlife's worst enemy here. 


(This is when I tell you, what happens next happens all the time... that moment when a wonderful stranger helps E realize she's a moron and is not in fact BETTER THAN THIS).


Then, Roger introduced himself.  This sweet old man shook my hand, and in his soft spoken, humble voice, told me all about his family business that he and his dad started more than 40 years ago. Showed me the 100 year old blue prints for the antique bridge his father built at the entrance of the park. Introduced me to some of his residents who hugged him like a father. And he walked me through the storm shelters he and his father built back in the '60's because, he said, he and his dad couldn't sleep at night knowing their neighbors weren't safe.  These are shelters that cost thousands of dollars to build.  Shelters nobody else in his industry is building because they don't get any return on that investment.  One of the nicest, warmest people I've met. 


Anyway.  I felt like an ass.  (again, not the first time).  But it all really came full circle when I was logging Roger's interview tape and was still giggling about the KING of BUCKS hat.  How redneck, right?


Well, that's when I remembered this fine piece of wildlife hunted down in my grandparent's back yard while I was home for Christmas. 

If I remember correclty, I was SO excited, that in my fit of joy, I took about a dozen pictures.   A seven point buck.  I mean, how COOL!  


Oh wait.


(hopefully they make QUEEN of BUCKS hats).


Lesson number 8,976 I've learned as a reporter: people surprise you (and I have a short term memory problem).