It was to have been “the Summer When I Gunned,” the SWIG of my so-called new life. For two years I’d been on the road, working with high school students interested in earning dual enrollment credits from Hocking College. I’d not gotten to shoot, or hunt, nearly as much as in the past, but doggonit, I had a plan.
Retire in January. See my son through the end of his high-school studies and track and field career. Start a real practice regimen, including all the dry mount practice I’d heretofore only sporadically done, with a new-to-me RBL made by Connecticut Shotgun. Register for some tournaments, hit the road, and finally get sporting clays right.
Everybody’s got a plan, the saying goes, until he gets punched in the mouth. Me? I was doin’ just dandy until somebody handed me a scorecard. That was a pop to the chops.
I’d driven most of the previous day and late into the night just to get within a couple of hours of the club, agonized through a motel night that featured what sounded like an after-midnight clog dancing recital, then was back in the truck before 6a.m. I was fairly well road rashed when I loaded my stuff into the back of a golf cart, sorta-kinda-almost ready to shoot.
First stand of my first tournament and my squad was assigned a station with report pairs, high and low, of slightly quartering away birds moving left to right on a down pitch. I watch the show targets. I watched squad mates shoot. I knew how I wanted to set up, had a sense of breakpoint/hold point/focal point/insertion – a man with a plan.
When my name was called, I smartly stepped into the box and executed none of it. My first stand of my SWIG was a whiff: three lost pairs.
I think I took it fairly well, actually. At least I did until we rode quite a way to the second stand, and I realized that I had left my shell bag and camera at the station before. Too embarrassed to ask someone for a lift, I jogged back, scooped up my gear, and huffed all the way back, just in time to step into the cage and behave as if I was totally unfamiliar with the concept of mounting a shotgun to intercept a flying target with a charge of shot. I was amassing more goose eggs than a golf course rough in spring time.
I pieced together shards of my composure just in time for my shotgun to begin to hiccup. This is one of CSMC’s heavy framed beauties, a single trigger, 23” barreled side by side balanced to handle with a grace that belies its 9 lb (!) weight. It was to have been my signature SWIG firearm, one that I’d shoot all summer at clays, then take wildfowling in autumn, the perfect companion to the little British Labrador puppy that was my other retirement gift from …well…uh…er…ME. No sense rebooting one’s shooting life under gunned or under dogged.
I’d thought to call the gun “John Henry,” imagining it as a 9 lb. feathers ‘n’ clay magic hammer like the one that fabled “steel drivin’ man” had swung in folklore. But I had purchased the RBL from an authentic “shootinest gent’man” in Mississippi. Hearkening back to the gunning tales of Nash Buckingham, I’d privately begun thinking of my SWIG sweetheart as “Bo Whoop,” an homage to Mr. Nash’s 91/2 lb. Burt Becker Magnum built on a Super Fox frame.
I’m not nearly shooter (or writer) enough to carry Mr. Nash’s shell bag. Likewise, my shotgun. When, for the third time, I pulled on a slack trigger for the second bird, it occurred to me that I had the name only partly right. “Bo OOOPS!” was more like it, or maybe “Bo Peep.” By the end of the round I was able to tell when the gun didn’t cock that left barrel and could open and close it again to have evertying set. Late, “Bo (didn’t Shoot Worth) Didley” would be shipped to CSMC for quick, courteous, and professional servicing. But for that day, that really good gun was performing as erratically as was I.
My companions saved the day, all of them savvy shooters intent on having a really good time at a Wounded Warrior Benefit Shoot at Vernon National Shooting Preserve outside Vernon, New York. They shoot well. They noticed when their companions did, too, and said as much. They sloughed off a bad station, a funny bounce on a rabbit target, gusty winds, brain gaffes. They proved gracious people all, happy to be shooting, mindful of the importance of this fundraiser that was earmarked for a new therapy pool at a veteran’s clinic.
Also in attendance were the Black Shirts, a squad of 10th Mountain Division soldiers just fresh from combat duty in Afghanistan. On their t-shirts, in silver, was the legend, “TF Chosin: Against All Odds,” a sobriquet their regiment earned long ago during the battle for Korea’s Chosin Reservoir.
There was a look, an air, to these youngsters that was undeniable. They had seen the Elephant, and it had obviously changed all of them forever. Somber through the event’s opening ceremonies, tentative at first, these ramrod-straight, resilient young men eased into the fun of the day, breaking more birds as they went along, laughing, cheering, jeering, and generally losing themselves in all that makes sporting clays sporting. Afterward, they were making plans to visit one of the outdoor superstores, intent on buying new guns and gear for the game.
But first, there was an awards ceremony. When the 10th Mountain men were introduced, there was polite, appreciative applause…until one right-thinking shooter stoop up to clap.
Another leapt up to join in, then a whole table of shooters, until all assembled under that big tent were caught in a standing, whooping, cheering ovation that left not a dry in the house – just the perspective at least one attendee with a hitch in his shotgun swing so badly needed.
You see, at the outset of my SWIG, all those years ago, I was chugging the wrong Kool-Aid. I’d lost complete track of who I was and what I wanted out of my time at the traps. Of course I wanted to shoot well this summer. But it’s not about “want-to;” it’s being clear about investment in practice against results.
The HOA for the day shot 97; the runnerup broke 96. I cobbled together a 70, a poor score for someone who’s been at this as long as I have, but about where I should have been given my preparation and commitment. My pre-shot routine was anything but, fading in and out between stands, sometimes between targets. My move to the target was quirky; my face kept but a casual acquaintance with that gorgeous walnut stock. I was sloppy and inaccurate in my target reads, lazy about doping out the best foot position. On the fringe, I learned all over again about making better travel plans, staying hydrated on the course, pacing myself between stations.
Muy first SWIG didn’t slake my thirst to be a better shooter, to take on more, and more challenging, targets. It was a tate of all that is good about our game – purpose, perspective, a good time, good fellowship. Certainly this was never more apparent than when, after the smoke had cleared for the day, I was invited to join the range owners’ families and a few friends for another go at the day’s targets.
That motley gathering was split into three groups. On hand was a veterinary surgeon with a target addiction; a school security guard whose backup was a German Shepherd named Briley; a retired pilot channeling Norm Crosby (after the veterinarian had run one of the early stands, the pilot quipped, “Ladies and gentlemen, he has the hands of a sturgeon”), a horsewoman with aspiration to become a Level I instructor, and the ubiquitous who suggested a new motto for in-house shooting instructor Tom Fiumarello’s shooting school: “You break the targets; we take the credit.”
Report pairs from the competition were switched to doubles. The order of which target to take first was dictated by whomever shot first. The banter was outrageous, the shooting equally so, and at least one visitor realized that he shot a whole lot better when he realized how little the X’s on the scorecard mattered against why he came to sporting clays in the first place: because it was so damned much fun to enjoy a SWIG among friends.