July 21, 2012

July 21, 2012

     Growing up in the country, my brother Kevin and I were always getting ourselves into mischief. I will never forget the first time my parents let me go out into the woods next to our house with my own bee bee gun. My brother and I are almost four years apart, I was around seven or eight at the time so that made him about eleven or twelve. Mom and Dad trusted us both, but him more than me. It was pretty chilly out that morning so we bundled up and put on our insulated moon boots (they were in style back then). We were going to hunt starling birds, since they were mean to the other song birds. I was flanking my brother as we were walking through some tall grass alongside an old pond, about that time I looked down at the safety button on the gun and couldn’t remember which way meant the safety was on. Did red mean it was on or black? Well, the only way I knew to find out was to try the trigger. I knew the gun had already been caulked. I never thought to look where I was pointing my gun, I just fired, “POP!” and the next thing I knew Kevin was jumping around on one foot screaming, “You shot me, you shot me!!” I guess that meant it wasn’t on safety. He started crying and ran inside. I had never seen my Mom so mad at me before. She pulled his boot off and it hadn’t penetrated the skin. My Dad thinks the insulation of the boots kept it from hurting him more. To this day, Kevin and I laugh hysterically at this story and I just can’t believe how stupid I was to just pull the trigger without any mind to where the bee bee was going.