Redneck boys photo essay 1: Courtesy of Grandma

I requested a picture of me or my brothers on a tractor for the bit a few weeks ago. I get a stack of photos in the mail well after that posted, but I'm one to use the tools in front of me and so the idea for a short photo essay comes to me as I perused the snapshots of my younger days.

This is obviously all three of us with two important things for a country boy to have. A Grandpa and a horse, said grandpa keeps just for you. A note about this moment is that one-year-old Abe does not seem too pleased about being in the saddle with me.

To keep this short I'm going to narrow the focus of the selection to photos relevant to posts I've already put up. Two categories with a picture a piece for the three of us.

I've mentioned they start us learning to work on the farm early. Here is Jake at about two, getting the feel for the old Ford.

Here's me, sporting both the bib-overalls and boots. The levers and heavy machinery there are for a drill, when I was learning how to drill a water well. About four-years-old here.

Another bit of machinery that you ought to know how to run is a planter. Here is Grandpa getting Abe ready to go plant some corn.

We do work a great deal, and begin learning at a young age on how to be of use around the farm, but there is also plenty of leisure activities for young ones on the farm.

We fished quite a bit when we were little. It was one of Gramp's past times for us. This is Jake with what I assume is his first fish.

When you're a boy on the farm and not fishing you might take a goat out for a stroll around the yard. You want to know the most country thing in this pic? It's not the rural setting, the horse in the background, nor the goat on a damn leash. It's the Funk's Seed big G hat on my head, trust me.

And even when you have time off as a redneck boy, the adults tend to keep working. And like Abe here, all you can do is hang-out and watch from afar.

But above all the one thing a country boy needs, as anyone who read Where the Red Fern Grows knows is a hound dog pup.

Grandma sometimes, has issue framing her shots just right. And as a man with a degree in film making it's hard to use such a shot.  But us with our hound pups is about spot on for our childhood, plus Abe's rocking the bibs.

If you notice in the shot with Jake and the fish above, there are dogs in the background. I think my next photo essay will be the unveiling of a whole new level of country, and the role dogs played in my hillbilly upbringing.