Thursday night, I was fretting over what to write for this column when my phone rang.
“Happy Thanksgiving,” I answered.
A burly voice boomed in my ear. “GOT YA DEER YET?”
“Hi Tom,” I said, and closed my eyes against the headache already forming.
The inquisitor on the other end of the line was none other than Thomas R. Smith, AKA Cousin Tommy. He’s one of those family members you talk to about once every five years whether you want to or not. We speak so infrequently that his name and number weren’t even in my phone, which explains why I answered. Mind you, Tommy’s not a bad guy. But he has a long-standing reputation as one of those people who reaches out only when he needs something. I was therefore naturally leery when he kicked off the call with a job offer.
“I wanna open a store somewheres in Greenville and have you run it. Yessah!”
“Oh wow!” I said.
Oh God, I thought.
For the next twenty-odd minutes, Tommy regaled me with his sales pitch. I turned him down for a variety of good reasons, not the least of which is that I know him. Still, listening to the man gave me an idea.
“Say,” I said, “while I have you on the phone…mind if I profile you and your business for the local paper?”
“SHOR!”
My headache began receding ever-so-slightly.
For the last decade or so, Cousin Tommy has owned and operated Tommy’s Taxidermy on Belgrade Road in Pingree. If you’re one of the dozen or so humans who still listens to terrestrial radio, you’ve doubtless heard his ads. Tommy’s Taxidermy: We’ll make your animal appear so life-like, you’ll be tempted to shoot it again.
Yes, he’s THAT guy.
I make fun of Tommy--mostly because it’s easy--but I give him great credit, too. My cousin is quite literally the modern-day embodiment of the American Dream, the rare man who made something of himself despite starting with nothing. In Tommy’s case, “nothing” includes brains, looks, and good taste. His 10,000 square foot combination taxidermy showroom/sporting goods store, though, is proof-positive of the man’s savant-like genius for marketing. Once, upon hearing a customer bemoan that he hadn’t caught a legal fish all spring, Tommy nailed a high-tension bungee cord to each end of a hardwood plank and dubbed it, “The Fenwick Fish Stretcher.” Guaranteed to add as much as two inches to any freshwater fish or the next one’s half price! They flew out the door at $49.95. When he noticed a spike in business each year around Valentine’s Day, he created a line of blaze orange lingerie. “Took off like a California wildfire,” Tommy told me, proudly. Spurred by the success of that little venture, he hired a ghostwriter to pen a Maine-based romance novel titled, Fifty Shades of Camo. It’s in its fourth printing; there’s even talk of a movie. Tommy also dabbles in real estate (sort of). For as little as $149.00 per night, you can rent one of his hunting blinds through Airbnb. Despite these and other big sellers, his primary money maker remains something you’ve probably seen a hundred times and never noticed.
Tommy had been in business for about two years when, while driving home one November night, he spied a deer hanging in his neighbor’s yard.
“This fella was one of the worst hunters you ever laid your eyes to,” explained Tommy. “Couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with a shotgun and a scope. Hell, he hadn’t shot a deer in twenty years that I know of. Then one day he bags this little spikehorn and he’s so damn proud of himself that he hangs it in his front yard for all the world to see. Problem was, there weren’t no trees in his front yard. His back yard’s a forty-acre woodlot, but he’s got to show off, ya know? So get this: he strings the deer from his dog run!” Tommy snorted at the memory. “Damndest thing you ever saw. Looked like Rudolph on a zip line.”
As Tommy tells it, he went home and started disparaging the neighbor to his wife. He was initially shocked when she defended the man. “Cut the poor guy some slack,” she scolded. “He’s waited a long time to have a deer to show off.’
“That,” explained Tommy, “is when it hit me.” He paused as if reliving the magic moment. “Every hunter wants a deer hanging in his yard. Well, I decided right then and there that every hunter should have one.”
Capitalizing on modern society’s “everyone gets a trophy” culture, Tommy launched an entirely new industry. Instead of mounting deer in the life-like, upright poses he’d always done, he began mounting some to look, as his website says, “Fresh off the roof of your car!”
Tommy priced his first “field-dressed, ready-to-hoist” white tailed deer at $3,995. It sold in an hour. He sold two hundred in the first year. Three hundred the next. This year, he’s already doubled that. “And we’re still getting Christmas orders!” he chimed.
I asked Tommy where he’s finding all these deer.
“We’re doing more and more custom jobs all the time,” he said. “Most are still road kills, though.”
“So, you recycle.”
He roared with laughter. “Zackly. For a taxidermy shop, the environmentalists love us.”
Each ultra-realistic, fully weatherproof mount comes with ten feet of rope, a roll of cheese cloth, and--ironically enough--a “lifetime” warranty, guaranteeing that the hunter can get skunked year after year and the neighbors will never know.
“That’s actually brilliant,” I admitted to my cousin.
“Ooh!” he said, “I almost forgot to tell you about the special I’m runnin’!”
Order your ready-to-hang white tail by December 1st and receive a replica deer tag absolutely free.
“What do wardens think of all this?” I wondered aloud.
Tommy ended the call there. Muttered something about a headache.
