Made for You and Me

Who's the leader of the club? The first rule about gun club is that you do not talk about gun club. The second rule of gun club is that you do not talk about gun club. Nor clay pigeons, nor the mechanical thing that throws them, nor targets shaped like groundhogs, nor Cabelas which has good sales. Nor about getting this year's license and hunting for ducks, doves, turkeys in the Missouri River bottoms, and roasting 'em up, or if there is any firearm that can take a grizzly bear. As far as I have heard, the only thing that can stop a grizzly bear is a really riled-up wolverine. Nor do you talk about Sept. 11, 2001 and how firearm sales have soared since then.

Homemade Rifle Range

To build this I could use only what was in my garage, & only what I could lift. The foundation had to be weatherproof and windproof and require no digging. So I placed 4 concrete blocks on end. Over these I stuck five-gallon plastic paint buckets, jamming them tightly or less tightly to make their tops level. On top of these went a sheet of plastic, about ¼ inch thick, weighted with barbell weights, those chintzy ones with concrete centers. (Demetrius the Gardener became a health nut late in life, too late, and left them in my garage. But his spirit – “make do, or do without” -- helped guide me in this construction project.) More paint buckets on top of stacked weights brace the bale of straw which is the backstop. The photo shows one bale; I need another to bring the backstop to the best height. But that’s all I will need to buy. I used to buy 6 bales and build a pyramid of straw. Precip made them rot and collapse. I wanted something better.

Photos show the the finished version, the foundation (left), and the rear view. Tell me I did good!

Remington Nylon 66

A million Remington Nylon 66 .22 long rifles were sold, starting from 1959 until the mid-60s, but this one -- a legendary firearm -- is mine. It's got synthetic parts not of plastic but of nylon -- makes some of the bearings near greaseless. And it's very, very light. It's semi-automatic and holds 12 shells. "Revolutionary" in its time. What's it for? On the Divine property it's for target practice. Yowza. It has no scope, but what a great sight it has. Was shootin' out the spaces in "6" and "8" on old license plate.

My Friend Hawkeye

Yesterday a friend and I walked a trail through Lone Elk Park where elk run free, and she saw, across a lake, a couple hundred yards away, two male elks tangling their antlers, pushing and shoving . . . I said, "Wow. How did you see that?" and she told me that a gym teacher once called her Hawkeye.

Encouraged, when we went back to my place I got out my Benjamin-Sheridan air rifle that I use for fun and squirrels. On the shooting range I set up in my meadow I taught Hawkeye -- who was born in New York City and had never touched a gun -- to shoot, first at coffee cans. On her fourth-ever shot she hit the target, and kept on hitting with jaw-dropping accuracy; a real natural talent. I said, "This calls for a celebration," and got out my Osama Bin Laden paper target, downloaded from a site called Ty's Shooting Interests, which I use only on special occasions. Hawkeye got a bull's eye on her second shot. I gave her the target as a souvenir to take back home to the big city.