Our families first deer, Bambi, came from a man in Danville who had collected animals. He had a wild array of animals and had decided to get rid of them. I still remember going to his house and waiting in the house seeing his monkey and others while my dad went out to pick a deer and get it loaded up. The monkey had been poorly treated at some point and was called SOB. The stories really involved the poor monkey having been tortured. I know in the end the monkey ended up turned over as a research subject at the University of Illinois.

While we were in the building waiting though I got to see a honey bear and wanted it. They were SO cute! Over time my parents collected more animals and the man kept selling off his animals. When he got down to the end of his collection the people buying the honey bears and monkey dropped by our house to see if they could make a deal with my dad. We had a large collection of deer by this point and I was really hoping! The men wanted the cost of two deer for a honey bear though, and my dad didn’t see the value in a honey bear…. In the mean time the honey bears had climbed all over the cab of their truck and locked the men out of their truck. Somehow my dad got them back into their truck, and back on their way. If I remember right my dad might have bought some deer from them though.

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