Sure as Shootin'

I haven’t shot any kind of a gun since I was 12 years old or thereabouts. I used to enjoy archery, bb guns, and pellet guns. My sister Val and I used to love target practice at camp, and in the backyard of our elderly friend Dewey. He was kind of like a surrogate grandpa, and would let us do target practice, as well as goof around in his garage/shop, where he tumbled rocks and let us loose amongst all kinds of fun saws, hammers, clamps, and other tools.

So, try to imagine how I felt when my new guy-friend Adrian suggested we go target shooting at the range behind Montana Tech! He had just taken a hunter’s gun safety refresher course, so he made a perfect teacher for me, in how to keep the gun pointed in a safe direction, keep the safety on until you are ready to shoot, and so on.

The hard part for me was learning how to use the scope. I’d never used one before. I found you have to have your eye in just the right place, or it looks dark, like a telescope that is not aimed at the stars correctly.

But once I got the hang of it, look out! My old skills came right back like riding a bicycle, and soon I was hitting cans and bottles from 20 yards away.

Adrian’s comment: “Good shooting Tex. What are you doing for hunting season?”

My reaction: “Hunting season?!?” You see, I used to be a vegetarian and a Buddhist, and while I am now semi-Christian and eating meat again, the thought of shooting Bambi’s mother, not to mention darling little gophers that look just like the pet hamsters I used to have sends an arrow of horror down my spine.

On the other hand. . .this IS Montana–everyone hunts. I have eaten plenty of wild game since I got here (even since I hit Idaho 2 ½ years ago). People manage to sneak deer or elk or moose meat into everything from burgers to spaghetti sauce to burritos. Yes, my first night in Idaho I was chomping on a burrito up near the Seven Devils wilderness area, listening to faraway wolf howls, and thinking–hmm, this beef tastes kind of strange. It was deer, of course.

I felt a little flare of pride–I haven’t lost my eye–and can’t help wondering what it would be like to bring down a deer, and have meat for the rest of the winter, that I’d bagged for myself. Meat does come from somewhere, after all, and someone does have to kill it.

On a side note, my friend Christina keeps threatening to bring me to her relatives’ ranch in Dillon to participate in a cattle branding.

I think Montana is starting to rub off on me, and rub away some of the “city slicker.”