May 1985. For my high school senior prom, I was part of a double date. The other guy in our foursome had an uncle who worked as a limousine chauffeur, so he arranged for us to ride in style to our dinner and prom.

I drove my own car to my date’s home, and there the limo picked us up. “Uncle Bob” treated us like VIPs, opening the doors for us, calling us “sir” and “ma’am,” and drove the four of us to our fancy restaurant (fancy for a small town of less than 25,000 people).

Unbeknownst to us, Uncle Bob spent the hour while we ate dinner in the restaurant bar, drinking. When we were ready, he escorted us out to the car, opened our doors, and then drove us to our high school gymnasium.

While we were dancing and socializing at the prom, Uncle Bob had gone back to the bar. When 11:00 rolled around, our limo was back to pick us up as planned. But this time, Uncle Bob wasn’t alone.

Good ol’ Bob had two younger women up in the front seat with him. Now, note that Uncle Bob was a married man. Not knowing what to say about the situation, we teenagers were uncomfortably quiet during our ride towards home, along the rural back roads. And then halfway home, a sheriff’s deputy came up behind us and turned on his flashing lights. Uh oh.

Uncle Bob pulled the limo over. There was talk in the front seat about Bob’s breath smelling of alcohol, so one of the women gave him her chewing gum, right out of her mouth. The evening had gone from blissful ignorance, to uncomfortable silence, to surreal worry. What happens to a group of 16, 17, and 18 year olds (I was 17) if their limo driver gets arrested for DUI? Would our parents have to come pick us up? And we still had no idea who these two 20-something women were up in the front seat.

Well, after a brief conversation between the deputy and Uncle Bob, Bob was handcuffed and stuffed into the back of the deputy’s cruiser. The deputy asked the women to drive us prom kids home and then take the car where it belonged.

After the deputy left the scene, the women discussed what they were gonna do. We told them where to take us, and during the rest of our ride home, they debated where to leave the limo. Who would they tell? What to do with the keys? What about Uncle Bob’s wife? — they apparently knew he was married.

Well, we teenyboppers were dropped off, and the women drove away in the limo. The second half of our ride home had been even more quiet between the four of us than the first half had been. Having free limo service for our prom night seemed like such a great idea the day before.

I later heard that the two women drove the car back to Uncle Bob’s home, told his wife that he was in jail, and asked her to drive them back to their own car at the restaurant bar. This last bit of the tale is a bit apocryphal, as I wasn’t personally present, but I don’t dismiss it as not possibly true.

Bullgrit

Continued from yesterday. Our guns for this day were: two 9mm semi-automatics, a .22 semi, a .22 revolver, a .357 revolver, a .38 revolver, and a 7.62mm SKS rifle. Since we couldn’t set up a proper target for tracking our shooting, there was no competition for this outing. We were just shooting for the fun of it.

We used proper safety — we all wore earplugs, the only loaded weapon was the one on the line, and those not shooting were behind the shooter. Since my 7-year old son was with us this time, I made sure he knew and understood all the rules we were following.

I grew up with guns around me. My dad owned a few guns, but they were usually just for owning and/or target shooting. They were always unloaded and put away up in a closet. My step-dad owned several guns mostly for hunting. Although they were usually stored in various closets, sometimes one was loaded (especially the one he took hunting daily).

My exposure to guns at an early age — being used to having them around, and occasionally actually shooting them on a range — gave me a healthy respect for the things. I didn’t have the urge to show them off to a friend or to sneak peeks at them when my parents weren’t around. All the kids in my family understood guns — their use and their danger. I believe this respect kept me and my siblings safe from accidental death that too many kids were and are vulnerable to.

I want to instill this understanding and respect in my boys. I don’t want them afraid of guns; I want them to respect them. I want my sons to understand what they are, know how they work, and understand that they are very dangerous. I don’t want them to be a forbidden secret that becomes a siren’s call to experiment with them without adult supervision.

If either of my boys are at a friend’s house and the friend says, “Want to see my dad’s gun?” At best, I want them to say, “No,” and then tell me. At worst, if they do look at the gun, I want them to know better than to play with it — to know it’s not a toy.

So I exposed Calfgrit7 to guns for the first time during this outing. He was interested and willing to learn. He watched the adults shoot some first, and then I took him to the firing line and helped him shoot for the first time.

I instructed him on how a gun works, how to hold it, and how to aim (and when, where, and why to point a gun). I stood behind him, with my arms around him helping him hold the gun. He shot several rounds from the .22 revolver. He handled the gun calmly and comfortably, describing the gun as “bouncy” (referring to the kick/recoil).

A few minutes later I let him take a shot with the .357. That sucker has a kick, and it’s really loud compared to a .22. He handled the gun and himself well enough, but he didn’t want to shoot it anymore.

During everyone else’s turn on the shooting line, Calfgrit7 spent more time playing and drawing in the dirt behind us, than watching our sport. I take that as a good thing — it shows that he’s not afraid of guns, and he doesn’t have a potentially dangerous fascination with them. Even though I don’t have any firearms out in our home (there’re stored away in the attic, without any ammunition) I want him aware and smart about guns.

It’s just like he can play in the kitchen while we cut with sharp knives, and cook with a hot stove. And like he can play in the front yard while cars may pass on the street. He’s not afraid of knives, stoves, or cars, but he understands their danger, and so he’s less likely to be harmed by them — because of someone else or through a dangerous curiosity about the “forbidden fruit.”

Bullgrit

It’s been over a year since I last shot a gun. I was in my hometown for this Thanksgiving, and so was my brother, so we and our dad took the opportunity to take the guns out. My brother’s girlfriend and my oldest son (7 years) went with us.

This time, instead of going out behind the grandparents’ farm, my dad had called and got us a place on an actual shooting range. Or so it was supposed to be. None of us had ever been to the location, so we weren’t sure how it would work.

When we arrived at the “range land,” we found the place deserted except for a couple dozen hunting dogs in chain link fence kennels. My dad and I opened a door to the old wooden shack — about 20′ by 40′ — and the first thing we saw was a wide flow of blood on the concrete floor.

Following the glistening dark red trail with our eyes, from just inside the doorway, we found the cut-up deer in a big metal bucket. A pretty fresh kill. No one answered our calls. We checked in another door and still found no one. So my dad used his cell phone to call the owner/operator to see what was up. We were supposed to have an appointment for this time and place.

Out back of the shack was what looked to be the range. It was pretty small, especially for an outdoor range. The longest line I could figure looked no more than maybe 30 yards. There was a tower for observation, with the rules of the range listed, but otherwise, the set up was pretty sparse.

Eventually the owner came driving up in his pickup truck. After a greeting and explanation of our intentions, he told us to follow him in our vehicle. He took us to what had been a corn field that summer, and told us we could shoot there. “Shoot in that direction. And try to aim low. There’s quail hunters over to the right.” He then left us to our entertainment. We could hear occasional shooting off in the distance. The Friday after Thanksgiving is a big deer hunting day.

So there we were, with a small arsenal of firearms, in the middle of a small field. To our left, on the other side of our vehicle (sitting on the rutted truck path) was a couple acres of new-growth pine trees. Behind us and to our right, was a thin copse of older pine trees, through which we could see a couple of houses and trucks (the tertiary blacktop ran between the trees and the houses). And in front of us, about 80 yards away, was a more sizable woods full of pines and hardwoods.

With the direction we were told to shoot in, the only things upright were some old brown corn stalks. We attached a paper target to a corn stalk (about 12 inches off the ground). We wouldn’t be able to do any real tracking on that target, but at least it gave us something to aim at.

We set about arming up. . . . to be continued.

Bullgrit

Coming home from work, I walked into the house and said, “Hey, everyone.” There was no reaction from my boys, playing in the den.

Cowgrit was in the kitchen, to my left, cooking dinner. She said, “They’re wrapped up with themselves right now. They didn’t even hear you.”

I put my backpack down on the floor, against the wall, and walked into the kitchen to give her a hug. As we stood there in our embrace, we could see the boys through the opening between the kitchen and den. Calfgrit4 looked up at us, and without saying anything, he stood up and started running.

“Now he’s noticed,” Cowgrit said.

CG4 left the den in a dash, rounded the foyer, and ran through the kitchen doorway. I braced for impact, and he collided into my backside to join our hug at a dead run. His height compared to me is such that if not for strong jeans, and a wary clinching of the buttocks . . . .

Bullgrit