Still the Same after 70 Years

Alfred Eisenstaedt, the LIFE photographer famous for his V-J day photo of a sailor kissing a nurse, captured a Border Collie at work on a Connecticut farm in 1940, five years before he took his most famous shot.




While these shots aren’t as romantic as the famous kiss, the romanticism of running a small farm in the country with a Border Collie at your side is a powerful draw. Such “city mice” as Donald McCaig and Jon Katz have documented their transitions to “country mice” in eloquent prose that could be easily accompanied by Eisenstaedt’s photos.

And it’s no surprise. There are few things in life that look exactly the same today as they did sixty eight years ago, but I’m sure you could visit a little farm in Connecticut today and see gentlemen farmers and yeoman farmers alike reprising roles that were played out in the same manner fifty, one hundred, and even one hundred and fifty years ago in much the same way with much the same dogs.

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