Our nearest neighbors are a young couple, Jeff and Karen, who moved here from Chicago about three years ago. They're good neighbors, and a lot of fun to be around, but I never pass up a chance to drop a remark about "city boys".

Last winter just before Christmas Jeff stopped by the house one Sunday afternoon and asked me to come out to his truck. In the bed of the truck was a freshly killed deer which had become entangled in a fence and broken its leg. Jeff had called a Conservation agent and received permission to put it out of its misery and keep the meat.

He asked me if I had some place where he could hang the carcass to dress it out, so I took him behind my machine shed, where there's an oak tree with a limb that grew for just that purpose. He looked at it and agreed that it would work, then asked me if I had some rope that he could borrow. After I went to the shed and got some hay hauling rope and handed it to him he stood there for a moment, then asked if I had "one of those things" to hook in the deer's legs.

I went back to the shed and got an old single-tree and carried it to the truck. After careful study he decided that it was just what he needed. After studying it for a few more minutes he asked where he was supposed to hook it. I showed him, then watched as he struggled his way through the two necessary cuts.

After we got the carcass hooked and hung he walked around the deer examining it, then said "I don't think my knife is sharp enough to do this. Have you got a good sharp knife?" When I returned with one, he asked me where he should start cutting. After I showed him, he said "I don't suppose I could talk you into doing it, could I?"

He could, and I did. It wasn't exactly what I had planned to do on a Sunday afternoon, but that fresh deer liver that I got out of the deal sure was good.