Okay, the last few years I have posted on FB the pic you see at the top of this post. It shows the Dyer family, very early 1950s, in Enid, Oklahoma, posed in my Osborn grandparents' back yard, all three little boys "armed" with the new cap guns that were, for a while, an Independence Day gift tradition (from Dad) in our family. (L-R: Dickie, Davi, Danny)
Sometimes it pays to look closely.
Which, yesterday, for some reason, I did.
And I noticed for the first time what the close-up/cropped image below shows you.
Yes, Little Davi (born 1948) is pointing his six-shooter directly into Dad's groin. Davi's kind of smiling; Dad most definitely isn't.
Another factor: Taking that photograph was surely my grandfather, G. Edwin Osborn: preacher, seminary professor. Guns-in-the-groin were not exactly in his file of sermon narratives.
Dad, I'm positive, was grimly hoping that Davi would not pull the trigger. (Can't remember if he did.) Prancing around holding your groin was not something you did in the presence of my grandfather. (Or grandmother, who was probably outside that day, as well.)
"Davi," by the way, was pronounced "Davy"; the family spelled it that way because his full name is Edward Davis Dyer, the "Davis" is the surname of my dad's maternal family. I think I remember that the odd spelling drove his teachers nuts during the early weeks of each school year. (No surprise: I taught for 45 years and never had a "Davi" in class.)
Anyway, yesterday I cropped the photo and emailed it to Dave (he's grown up now) (and to my son: I've not grown up) with the message: Be careful where you point that thing.
Davis (he's really grown up now) emailed me back, wondering what on earth I was up to.
Who knows?
In many ways I guess I still resemble that immature satanic prankster I was in the 1950s. Only a glance in the mirror (now and then) makes me realize that I'm not seven years old. I'm in my seventies!
Still ... a gun in a groin? Kinda hilarious ...
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