Guns

Guns. I was listening to Valerie Plame talk about how lucky she was to be good with an AK47 on a 60 minutes clip online. For some reason it took me back to my childhood and all the guns my grandfather had. So I thought back to the summer when I was 8 years old and first introduced to shooting pistols and rifles in Idaho.

I was very into cowboys and riding horses and always having a cowboy hat and toy guns at the time (1956). So when I got on the right fender of my granpa's old Mash world war II power wagon 4wd and headed down one of his many dirt roads on his 2000 acre mining claim there I had a silver Colt Woodsman .22 automatic clip loaded pistol strapped to my waist in a holster as I rode on the front fender of grandpa's 4wd old truck. On the other front fender rode my 13 year old cousin with a German Luger 9mm automatic holstered and strapped to his waist. We both felt pretty amazing that day riding in the light rain on a backwoods dirt road on Grandpa's mining claim(Until) grandpa hit a 10 inch in diameter rock on my side which slowed but did not stop the truck but threw me forward off the front of the truck and then grandpa ran over me.(Luckily because of the mud I just had a black and blue mark across my right shin and thigh as my leg was bent as the right front wheel ran over me).

I heard my mother screaming as she sat in the middle next to my father who was in the window seat on the front bench seat (bucket seats didn't come into vogue until the 1960s. I tried(even though the air was knocked out of me to let them know I was alive as I stared up at the transmission of the very high center old 4 wheel drive. Soon Dad saw I was alive and everyone was very relieved. however, for me, I had lost the fantasy moment because even though I still had my gun on my hip I was covered with mud and sitting on my mother's lap in the center of the front seat with Grandpa and Dad and Mom.

How quickly things can change. Next, we arrived at the target practice area on Grandpa's mining claim where bullets couldn't harm anyone and mountains surrounded us on all sides with no one this side of the mountains. I shot my woodsman .22 and was fairly accurate with it. Then I tried the German Luger and was hit in the center of my forehead because of the kick of the gun. So now I had blood going into my eyes from the wound on my forehead from the kick. Then I wanted to shoot Granpa's 30 odd 6 which is a World War I M1 army rifle. This time the kick didn't knock me down because I was ready but my shoulder was black and blue from the kick for about a month.

I decided I was going to stay with .22 rifles that tended to be very accurate but wouldn't make me black and blue on shoulder or forehead at least until I was 12.

Later that week in Seattle where Grandma was, she gave me Dad's childhood rifle that she had kept for protection. It was a .22 Remington Pump rifle. I was proud at age 8 to have my very own rifle to keep in my closet to protect my family and for hunting.