The Iowa-Missouri border, 1967

The summer I was seven or eight years old, my dad took two of my brothers and me to a family reunion in southern Iowa. My five other brothers and my mom stayed behind. Only subsets of our family took trips because there was only so much room in the car, so Bob and Tim and I felt chosen and lucky. He drove us past Mt. Ayr, our destination, to the Iowa-Missouri border and took this picture of us. It felt very exotic to me at the time. I’d never been anywhere but Iowa before. There’s another, cooler, photo of the three of us standing sideways under this sign with one foot in each state. It’s a close-up and all three of us are sort of glaring at the camera, like don’t mess with us. We are badass. But I love this one too. The body language of it. Something kind of badass in our poses here too.

There are other photos from that trip. There’s one of me standing behind a very large dog. That seemed to be a recurring theme in my young life. Me having my photo taken with somebody else’s dog.

Anyway, this is what I’m writing about now. This strange trip to visit our odd rural southern Iowa relatives. I don’t know what will come of it. I hope something good.