Over the years I have developed a very mixed opinion on deer. Growing up in the middle of nowhere, deer were a fairly common sight. My grandparents had a fair amount of land that was frequently surrounded by fields of corn and my parent's acre of land was mainly woods, so having deer wander onto either property was a frequent enough occurrence for me. Whoever happened to find the deer first would always call for everyone else to come join them at the widow to see it. But no matter how times you happened to see them, it is always a fairly majestic sight. Especially during the winter and spring when you would often see a doe and her fawns wander by. Even today, living here in Pittsburgh, I am often mesmerized when I happen across a deer. Once I was walking to work at 5 o'clock in the morning, when I came across a doe in the middle of Shadyside. I just happened to look down a street along my walk and saw it in the middle of the morning mist. I stopped in my tracks and stared at this rather bizarre morning occurrence for quite a while before I finally got back on my way. There was also the time I spent probably a good hour just stalking the deer that live in the Allegheny Cemetery over in Lawrenceville. I had no particular reason for it, I just happened to be wandering the city with my camera that day and it seemed like the logical thing to do. It certainly gave me a nice collection of photos in the end.
On the other hand, deer do legitimately freak me out. Like I said I grew up in a small area and deer were a fairly common sight. Unfortunately about half of the deer I've seen in my lifetime have been the tropies of the successful kills that decorate a good portion of people's homes. Hunting is a pretty big right of passage for most people in my hometown, so much so in fact that we always got the first day of deer season off from school. (It does fall on the Monday after Thanksgiving, so not that odd of a time frame but if half the school is going to skip anyway why bother with class.) Granted this is something you generally get used to seeing, but it always remained a fairly unsettling sight for me. The worse ones were always the stags that had the tendency be hung near the top of the staircase. Not only were you greeted by the dead marble eyes of the poor creature staring down at you, there was also that minor concern that you would somehow get hit by the impressive antlers on his head. Along with the multitudes of heads I've seen, there is also the amount of near car accidents I've been in because of the animal. I personally only came close to hitting a deer once. I was driving to pick my little sister up from swim practice on one of the few visits I made home, when all of a sudden there was clearly a deer mid-jump in my headlights. I didn't see the bugger at all until he or she was just magically there in the light. Luckily for me I wasn't driving that fast and was able to slam on the brakes in time to miss it. I was also very lucky that no one happened to be behind me on one of our busier roads in Milan. Otherwise I can only think of two hits that I was involved in, although those times were perpetrated by my dad. We don't know what it is about my dad's driving but he somehow he just draws the bastards out. I've lost count on the amount of deer my dad has managed to hit over the years with a variety of cars. I'm fairly certain though that it rivals at least one uncle's best hunting record. Obviously when a deer decides that it's time to jump out of the woods and onto the road, there really isn't much you can do about it but I'm always scared that one will commit his kamikaze attack on my turn at the wheel. During college I had a good friend who was absolutely enthralled with deer. Unlike me, she was originally from Philadelphia and didn't have that lifelong exposure to the animal. On an early visit to the Pittsburgh Zoo, we naturally walked through the Kid's Kingdom and their exhibit on Pennsylvania wildlife. I'm sure this is still a thing, but you were allowed to pet a variety of animals in that area with the white tail deer being one of them. I don't think I've ever seen anyone get so excited by this prospect. And while she walked up to the deer to pet them, my jaded self walked past. I had no real desire to go near it, they could remain majestic at a distance in my book. While I doubt this visit was the moment that spurred her creativity, I do recall seeing more and more deer start appearing in her artwork. Unlike tonight's very animated sticker, she would do a more lifelike representation. Her prints were absolutely gorgeous though, often juxtaposing animals against heavy machinery like helicopters. I don't know if she still does any work involving deer but it certainly made an impression on me during college, further complicating my opinion on the creature.
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Maggie Ondrey
An amateur photographer and writer capturing a small portion of the city. Archives
August 2017
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