The first time ever I saw your face: When spotting a deer was a moment-in-time event

I don’t remember a thing about my first dance or my first hit in a ballgame.

But I recall the two whitetail bucks, the first deer I’d seen, as vividly as if I’m staring at them in a photo. From the white rings on their noses all the way to their white tails as they waved good-bye, it’s all still there 50 years later.

Back in 1965, we still had people who believed in Bigfoot and black panthers, yet they swore we had no deer in Kansas. Even though it was the year of Kansas’ first deer season, the creatures were rare enough in many areas that people made plaster casts of their tracks. Some sightings made the weekly newspaper.

Having enough deer for that first season was a hot topic down at Thompson’s Barber Shop, Tonganoxie’s supreme court of debating the day’s topics. And if anybody actually saw a deer, that’s where it usually was announced to the world. I listened to the assorted tales for hours. Eventually I became obsessed with all things deer.

The few locals who had hunted deer in Colorado or Missouri rated higher in my admiration than Mantle or Maris. For miles, I stared out the side window of dad’s ’53 Ford pickup. So many times he’d turn around at my request, and we’d find what I was sure had been a deer to be a distant brown Jersey cow or similar colored dog. I was obsessed.

Twice, dad showed me tracks in the soft mud near ponds where we fished. I ran my fingers over those tracks until they were the size of an elk’s. But time dragged so slowly as I awaited my first sighting.

Back then, all things deer-related were special to most Kansans.

Families took evening drives out around Leavenworth County Lake, looking for where others had seen deer in nearby fields. About half of the farmers would let someone with a tag hunt “their deer” – they were so happy to have them around.

In the mid-1960s, the concept of deer someday being considered vermin, as they are now by many, would have seemed as uncommon as someone cursing a gorgeous sunset or being disgusted at the brilliant foliage of the fall. Talking about a time when Kansas hunters could shoot five or six deer per season, as we can now, would have seemed a foreign language.

But my only concern was to see even one deer. Buck, doe, spotted fawn, it made no difference. That I’d see a pair of bucks together, less than 30 yards away, was far past my 7-year-old imagination. It was probably about this time of the year, in 1965.

Dad and I headed west of town one Friday evening, to check the pets and place for a friend. As soon as we pulled off the road, I saw a buck. It seemed surreal, like a scene from movie or the cover of Outdoor Life. I was so mesmerized by the first buck I didn’t see the other buck standing 10 yards away until dad brought it to my attention.

The scene couldn’t have been better – the deer standing on mowed grass, dark green forest behind them. They seemed to glow in that special last hour of daylight. The next day, while standing center-stage at Thompson’s, I spread my arms above my head when asked to show the size of the antlers. Looking back, they were probably a pair of bookend yearling 8-pointers.

After a few beloved seconds, the bucks trotted towards the far end of the lawn. “Watch, watch, watch,” Dad hissed as the bucks neared the five-strand fence. I will never forget how effortlessly, and by how far, they cleared the fence that was then well above my head. As they crossed the neighboring pasture their long whitetails slowly waved good-bye.

The place where I saw those bucks is between our family farm and town. A paved county road, which seemed as foreign as high deer limits in ’65, passes within 100 yards of where we saw those deer. Several times I’ve actually slowed as I passed Sam’s place over these past 50 years, and have turned down that gravel road a few times to look at the lawn. Within a post or two, I can remember exactly where those deer jumped that fence.

I can never help but smile and remember those two young bucks nearly every time I pass.

They weren’t Bigfoot, and they weren’t black panthers. They were honest-to-gosh deer in Kansas. That made them far more special then, and now.

This story was originally published August 28, 2015 at 10:00 PM with the headline "The first time ever I saw your face: When spotting a deer was a moment-in-time event."