SPRINGBROOK, Wis. – As Jesse Kauffman completed his deer stand, his daughter Emma was already coming to a conclusion: Jesse is not like the other dads.
“He’s one of kind,” smiles Emma, now 11 years old.
She might be onto something. No other neighborhood father has adorned the top of his deer stand with a 72-passenger school bus.
“It's different,” says Jesse proudly from inside the elevated bus. “Nobody else has got one, that's for sure.”
The yellow bus sits atop an old gas station fuel tank, set upright on its end. Recently, Jesse added an American flag to his already spectacular display. It flutters nearly 30 feet off the ground.
“This bus screams America,” Jesse says. “You just can’t see this anywhere else in the world.”
Nor are you likely to meet another man like Jesse - unless you happen to run into Jesse’s dad.
Years ago, Willie Kauffman built his own deer stand topped with a small camper. When he learned of his son’s more ambitious plans, Willie told Jesse he’d never get a bus up that high.
Challenge on.
“I didn’t care if we had to get a twin-rotor helicopter,” laughs Jesse. “I was going to get a bus up here.”
His odds were better than the average hunter.
As the owner of an excavation company, Jesse had the equipment he needed to build a temporary dirt ramp all the way up to the top of the fuel barrel. After that, it was just a matter of pushing the bus up the ramp with a bulldozer.
Actually, it wasn’t quite that simple.
Jesse’s first attempt now lies in a heap of school bus near the base of the deer stand.
“Not everything is always a success at the beginning,” Jesse says. He simply purchased another bus, then, on the second try, stuck the landing.
“It’s fabulous,” says Jesse, using his favorite word. “Trying to make everything fabulous,” is what Jesse is all about.
Comings and goings from the deer stand take place on an old hay bale elevator extended from the ground to the front of the bus.
With two dozen sliding windows and an emergency door, the bus offers ample positions for shooting. Even Jesse’s father has finally had to admit a bus makes a pretty good deer stand.
“When we got three, four, five of us in the camper it got to be crowed," says Willie. But now, “It’s really a good way to spend an afternoon up there.”
For Jesse, the bus is just the latest masterpiece in his obsessive quest for family fun.
Another - his 120-foot-long "Slip N Slide" made from a plastic landfill liner - is set up in his backyard.
“It’s all about having a good time,” he says.
When the deer hunt starts, Jesse’s friends will know where to find him. He'll be in his freedom tower of a deer stand surrounded by kin - smiling.
“That's what deer hunting is about anyway,” Jesse says, “spending time with your family.”