I'm eager to tell you the most unusual gift I received this year. The gift was given by Tina, my daughter, and Jonathan my son in law. Last year they gave us a class on how to paint your pet and I blogged about that. This year they offered to take me to the indoor shooting range.
Tina, Jon, and I were looking forward to bringing our handguns to the range and blasting away. Timmothy had never shot a gun before but I invited him to come along and much to my surprise he said yes.
Unfortunately when we arrived they told us it was rifes only day. Fortunately for us the four or five people there were a close knit group that were extremely friendly and wanting us to enjoy ourselves. They not only supplied us with their prized target shooting rifles (valued at about $2,000.00 each) they also supplied the ammunition! All this for just $10.00 each.
One of the men (81 years old) took an interest in helping Timmothy get set up for his first shoot. Somehow, even before Timmothy's first shot he noticed Tim was not comfortable setting up his stance or the way he held the rifle. He asked Tim to stand up and point at a target. He said "shut one eye and tell me if the target moves". It did. So he asked Tim to do the same thing with the other eye. Tim did and the target did NOT move. He told Tim, and us, that he is a left handed shooter and that is why Tim had trouble holding the rifle properly. Tim tried it. These are the first 8 shots he had ever taken in his life.
8 shots, 7 hitting the bullseye circle. The first shot (top left) right in the bullseye.
My best Christmas gift ever was watching my son overcome his fear of loud noises, fear of firearms, and the discovery of his marksmanship skill. The targets are printed on 8-1/2 X 11 copier paper and placed 50' down range. This is NOT hitting the broad side of a barn, this IS marksmanship.
So how did I do? Each time I fired I hit inside one of the black circles. I was happy with that being I was using an unfamiliar weapon. Tina's scores were better than mine and Jon's were much like Timmothy's, every one within the innermost circle.
An unusual gift I never would have chosen for myself but the best gift I received this Christmas.
One of the many joys of being the father of two artists is they are always thinking outside of the box. I am thankful that even in my 70's I am still open minded enough to try new things outside of my box of comfort.
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