Penguins

This is the time of year when we start reminiscing about things. I’m a sappy girl who writes things down and lives through the eye of my camera. I’ve kind of always done that in some form or another, since I was a little girl.

I come from a rather simple way of living. Things were not that complicated in my childhood. Though, I think childhood is that way for everyone, even when it’s really not.  In our mind it’s easier. Simple.

When I was a kid, we didn’t get our Thankgiving turkeys from the store.

We got it from the mountains.

My dad was a hunter. He would leave when I was a kid and horseback ride into the mountains by Jackson for miles and miles and days and days to hunt for big game. But turkey’s we would all jump in to the truck and head up to the black hills and go scouting for them.  My dad was a mountain man to me.

I’m not a hunter. Never have been.  Never will be. I’m too soft for it. But hunting provided food for my family for my entire childhood and still does (though, to be honest, I don’t eat much of it.)

But back to the turkeys.

As we we were driving through the hills, I sat in the front seat with no seatbelt looking out the windows on that sunny day before Thanksgiving.  I was a little younger than my little Dino Dude is now. All of a sudden I looked out the passenger side window and much to my dismay there were a ton of penguins running up the hills side and into the trees. I yelled to my dad “Dad…there’s penguins over there. Penguins!!! Penguins!!” My dad and my brother flew out of the truck and went running up the hill. And came back with one of the largest turkey’s we have ever had for Thanksgiving. Apparently, I was a little confused about the difference between penguins and turkeys. I may not have known it at the time, but I was an excellent scouter.

But to this day, every time I’m driving in the country, and I see a gaggle of turkeys running into a grove of trees, I smile to myself and think, “oh my, those of some really pretty penguins.”