Black N White (Photos)

Here I go daydreaming again, looking back into the past when my Sundays were spent with my Mom, Dad, and grandparents. After church we would all pile into my grandfathers old Nash and go for an afternoon drive to enjoy the beauty of the San Juan mountains in Colorado. There were no such things as digital cameras but Frank (grandpa) always had his trusty old Kodak along. I can still imagine smelling his King Edward cigars as he drove along with only the side wing window open. My Mother was always the one to yell out, "there goes a deer under those trees" and when the car stopped we all would climb out to see how many we could count. The elk posted in the above photo was a time when the poor animal got bogged down in the snow with his heavy antlers.
Thanks to some caring cowboys the poor thing was pulled out and given a bale of hay before sending him on his way.

Although Frank was the only grandfather I ever knew he was really a step grandfather but I followed him around and thought he was the greatest thing since RED RYDER. Frank was a carpenter by trade but also an avid outdoors man, he taught so many things about the wilderness and the values of honest labor. I watched and worked beside him as he built my grandmother a house from old lumber and nails from building he had torn down. Each nail was old, but with a brick, hammer and sore fingers I straightened them all. When I would try to slow down he would say to me that I would never amount to a hill of beans. Funny how such things will stick in the brain, I think that's what drove me to try my best at what ever life handed me.