Black eyes...

In the beginning of "The Brothers Trip' to Jackson Hole" they show a clip dated 4/15/88 with Dean (as a child of about six-years-old) with a swollen left eye, and the narration says, "...poison ivy", presumably to explain why Dean's eye is so swollen that it is shut tight. Then, in the very next clip - dated 12/25/85 - we see Dean, and (what we assume is) his older brother trailing him. It is three years earlier, and in this clip his older brother has a black, swollen left eye as well. Did the older brother coincidentally happen to get poison ivy in his eye too, three years earlier? Usually when you see someone who has a black eye from being punched, it is their left eye, because most people are right-handed and that's where the punch ends up. Are these kids fighting all the time, and hitting each other in the eye, or constantly getting into poison ivy, or is something else happening here? If I saw these videos, I'd be rather suspicious as to what was going on in that house.

Like they say in the video, perhaps it is poison ivy. Maybe the place is surrounded with the stuff. Then again, maybe someone is getting hit in the face regularly. I know one thing, if my kids kept getting into poison ivy around my home, I'd root it out and destroy all of it. It's not like they're trekking into the deep woods at three-years-old, which means it's close to the house. At the very least, it's pretty irresponsible to allow that stuff to grow so close to the house that the little children keep getting it in their faces.


"...nothing is left of me, each time I see her..." - Catullus