Learning taxidermy

I'm not real sure how old I was when I saw an advertisement in one of the magazines Mom and Dad subscribed to for me. It was an ad describing how one could learn how to do taxidermy work, or stuff birds and animals and fish and all critters. It was a nine-lesson course, and it seems like it was for nine weeks, but then it could have been nine months. It's been more than 60 years ago. It was from J.W. Elwood down in Lincoln or Omaha, Nebraska.

I must have been persuasive because Mom and Dad signed me up. When the lesson book came, it was maybe 20 or 30 pages or so with a few simple drawings or sketches. I didn't have YouTube or videos to watch. The first lesson was basically getting started and a little on mounting or stuffing birds. Birds were easy to get. I had my BB gun and .410 and my .22 so I was ready. There were some supplies I had to have to be able to mount birds, so we had to order the supplies as well.

I don't have a clue how Mom and Dad ordered the stuff and paid for it. That's what brought up this memory. How did folks back in the 1950s or 1960s buy stuff through the mail? I'm fairly certain they didn't have a credit card and absolutely positive they didn't have a debit card. I don't even have one today and don't want one. I would imagine they somehow wrote a check and sent it with the order. Anyway I got the supplies.

There was some small wire that ran up the legs under the skin into the imitation body and then up the neck. The body was made out of what was called excelsior, which was what Dad's baby chicks came on in the mail. He'd get a couple three boxes of like 50 baby chicks per box, and the bottom of the box would be lined with excelsior, which was kind of like stringy bamboo or wood. Anyway I'd form the body and wrap it with string and that would be the body. An assortment of eyes came with the kit. There was a powder called calorax that I put on the skin to preserve it.

So I'd go smoke a bird and stuff it. Red-winged blackbirds I believe had red eyes, while the jet black bigger blackbirds had yellow eyes. These were kind of like a miniature crow. Mud hens I think had red eyes. Mud hens had bugs on them like lice or something. I didn't do many of them. There were different size eyes for bigger and littler birds. It was one of those deals where once you got hooked, there was more and more stuff to buy.

Somehow I got a pheasant and a coyote about the same time, so I mounted the coyote head with the pheasant in his mouth. That was a pretty neat mount. It took a lot of tedious work to make it look alive and real. I can't remember for sure the color of the eyes of either the pheasant or the coyote. I think the coyote's eyes were a kind of yellow.

Mom and Dad and Mick and I were headed to Uncle Mick's, Dad's brother, up north of Whitman, Nebraska, to hunt deer, when Dad saw a small buck up on Wally Farrar's place south of Hyannis. Dad knew Wally, so Dad drove close enough to get a shot. We ate the deer, but I mounted the head and tanned the hide. The deer head looked pretty good, but the tanned hide was stiff and no good.

There for several years my focus was on finding critters to stuff and practice taxidermy on, but eventually I got bored and moved on to a different hobby or endeavor. Thinking back I'm thankful that Mom and Dad spent funds they didn't have to spare on my jaunt into taxidermy. It didn't dramatically change my life, but it just added to whom I grew up to be. Thanks, Mom and Dad!