Article Contributed on: 8/23/2006 8:15:24 PM
Bob had all kinds of hobbies. One that he was good at was photography. He had gotten his private pilot's license and loved flying also, so he decided to combine the two to try to make some extra money ... for more flying!
He came up with the idea to fly over farms north of Denver and take photos of them from the air, then he would develop them in his own darkroom and we would drive to the farms to see if the owners would like to buy a picture of their homes and farm land.
We were very surprised that almost everyone bought several pictures. Pride of ownership! The pictures were in black and white and were very nice. Bob would enlarge them to 8x10.
One day, we took our two boys and our friend's daughter,
Lorinda Lilly, who was staying with us, to a farm to try to sell them. The people were very friendly. They had lots of small and larger animals that they loved and gave us a guided tour. We had fun petting different critters until we came to a pen with a skunk. As we all hesitated, the owners said not to worry, the skunk was very tame and the kids could pet it.
Ron did,
Don did also, and Bob ... but when Lorinda stuck out her small hand toward the skunk, it bit down hard on her hand! Bob had to pry it off her while she howled and we were terrified. The people said it had never bitten anyone before and they felt awful, but not as bad as Lorinda,who hadthree or four holes in her hand.
The skunk had had a rabies shot, thank the Lord. We took Lorinda to the doctor and notified her parents who had gone to South Dakota. Lorinda had asked to stay with us because it was boring there --ha! Not at our house, never a dull moment.
Yes, the farm owners did buy the pictures of their place but that was the end of our
money-making idea. We stuck to flying for pleasure. Our kids remember that day vividly and Lorinda has the scars to prove it!