PHOTOGRAPHIC FIELDTRIP

Now it is 1985, when to my abiding astonishment I had gotten a steady job as an archaeologist with the Missouri Highway and Transportation Department (MHTD). I really freaked out highway engineers, walking into their halls like Grendel. Happily, at the time the Department had just gotten hammered on a discrimination suit and nobody was about to make me clean up lest I sue--also, since I was usually off in the boonies, it scarcely mattered what I looked like. In this photo I am holding up the freshly-shed skin of a rattlesnake. I took it back to the lab and thumb-tacked it to the cabinet beside my desk, with the hand- lettered placard 'Don't Tread On Me.' (Photographer: Ron Richmond).

I took this one myself, using a timer, at my house in Jefferson City, Missouri, in 1986. My college girlfriend had suddenly reappeared in my life and asked me to send her a picture. When a man has to send a woman a picture....well, I think you know how that goes. She was sexually aroused by the jacket, so I didn't have to ponder my wardrobe. (Photographer: William Brame).

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copyright © 1997
William Brame
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