Peter Feldstein
2005
Joe Prymek
[The Oxford Project]

Inkjet print
Welcome Books
I came up here from Washington, Iowa, when I was eight or nine. My father sold the farm, but I wished he would've kept it for me. I played football at City High, then I worked roofing and construction. I met my wife at a roller-skate rink.
 
I do a lot of bow hunting. I take a shower, a bath, then I use human-scent neutralizer. I wash my clothes in stuff that makes them smell like dirt. Then I douse myself with buck urine. I've got four-hundred-and-fifty dollars worth of camouflage clothing.
 
I go up twenty feet in a tree. You sit there for four or five hours. Hell, sometimes it's longer. I start in the morning when it's dark. I take pop and coffee, maybe a few pieces of candy, sometimes a turkey or ham sandwich. If you gotta pee, you do it in a milk bottle.
 
Deer are real smart, and the bigger they are, the smarter they get. I'm accurate up to forty yards. I butcher them myself, but I give most of it away to my kids. I don't have any heads, just two or three racks.
 
In the winter, I go ice fishing. If it's real cold, I bring a tent. I get up early. That's when it's the best crappies, bluegills, walleyes, northerners. I use wax worms with red or white hooks. I know how to get me some fish.
 
Joe Prymek
 
From The Oxford Project. Welcome Books. Photographs © 2008 Peter Feldstein.
Text © 2008 Stephen G. Bloom. www.theoxfordproject.com
 
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