My Tennessee Brother-in-law

My Brother-in-law Don came into my life when I was fairly young. He was a big man and had a wonderful laugh. The first time I met him I liked him instantly.

Don showing off his new pickup in 1991

At the time he married my sister my folks were still on the farm and we had animals as well as farm land. We had pigs, cows, horses, chickens and maybe still some ducks. After observing all this one day my Brother-in-law announced to my Dad in his southern drawl,

Montana of course is a land for hunting in the fall of the year and my Brother-in-law got a deer this one year. We always took the deer hides to town and traded them for gloves or a little money. Don’s deer was hanging in the shed and my Dad told him to go out and skin the deer so my mother could take the hide to town. He went to the shed and was gone a long, long time. My mother got ready to go to town and still no Don and no hide. My mom went to the shed to see my Brother-in-law laboring on the deer hide. He had only skinned one back leg in all that time. My mother with her dress on grabbed the knife and skinned the deer in what Don said later was less than 2 minutes. She threw the hide into a sack and off to town she went without a word, leaving my Tennessee Brother-in-law standing with his mouth wide open.

Welcome to Montana..

Shed where the skinning was done, a long time ago

My good old friend Don B. my sisters husband went to the big hunting range in the sky a while ago, and I sure do miss my Tennessee Friend.

What a good man.