About that 'Uncle Wiggily' business
When I was a young chap of 4 or 5 and we lived on the old Johnson place two miles west of Menard, the farm was leased to Roy Spinks, a family friend and all-round good role model. He was at the place frequently tending the his livestock, drenching sheep, treating wormies, mending fences, building fences, building cattle pens and sideboards for his truck. He had a lead goat named Sancho. Well, I would follow him around and "help" him on his various chores. We would ride in his truck and haul sheep and goats and cows. I was apparently quite active and so he nick named me Uncle Wiggily after a popular children's book character at the time. I have received a request for more information regarding the previously mentioned goat, Sancho. Well. Sancho was a rather tall slim white Spanish goat. He had threatining horns and a very nice long white beard. Sancho carried himself in a most dignified manner taking no guff from lesser creatures, which included little boys. Sancho would not attack but rather ignore you like a cat. He answered only to Roy and then only to mortal threats. Actually he pretty much snapped to attention when Roy called his name. There were several commands he would respond to in the execution of his chores. I do not remember these commands. Sancho being a lead goat would show the way to timid sheep, convincing them of the merit of entering either of the two levels of a sheep hauling truck. He walked into to the truck all the way to the front and unnoticed by the sheep proceeded to slip right out the back. Sancho did not appear to suffer any moral pangs or guilt as a result of this oft practiced deceit on the witless sheep. As I recall Sancho lived to a ripe old age for a goat, apparently never having to pay for his duplicitous deeds. How I got into photography
My mom always took a picture of me every month around my birthday. The pictures were all black and white and shot with a Kodak box camera using 616 film. Those pictures are now one of my proudest possessions. Just twelve pictures a year but they were always were with something I was interested in or doing at the time. At the time I found them interesting an looked forward to them coming in the mail after we mailed the exposed roll to San Antonio to be developed and printed. I still have the envelopes they came in. In those days in small towns there was not development services and all our film had to be mailed to a developer, in our case 'Studers'. Well mother had a cousin in Globe Arizona that was a professional photographer and he came to visit one summer when we lived on the old Walston place(the place with the dairy). Well Mr. Norman had shot some slides on a winter vacation in Colorado and they were in color. Color!!! mind you. The greens and reds were so saturated and stood out against the snow. I was so impressed. The first camera I had of my own was some kind of reflex thing that I used in college. Took a lot of architectural pictures and some of the farms at A&M but few of people. I dabbled with photography using SLRs and slides after college while I was at Kennedy Space Center and later in Maryland. Then about 25 years ago I got in touch with that fascination from my childhood and have pursued it ever since. Photography has taken me many places I would not have otherwise visited. I have seen more of America through a viewfinder than not. I plan to keep it that way.