New BB gun is bound to bring out the boy in all of us

[DeanC]

Somehow I missed this article last month. Pretty darn good. It makes me yearn.

New BB gun is bound to bring out the boy in all of us
CHRIS NISKANEN
Outdoors Editor
TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press

08/19/2007

Standing in the sporting-goods store checkout line, a new BB gun in hand, I was thrust back to the summer of 1975. On a hot August day, I plunked a quail off a fence at 20 paces with my Daisy repeater. I felt no shame that day, though in retrospect it was an act of lawlessness.

I was 11, and summers seemed endless. My dad scolded me, then skinned the quail and we ate it, each drinking a cold glass of Pepsi.

Now, on the eve of my 43rd birthday, I was buying a new Red Ryder for my visiting nephew, whose name is Indigo. He lives in California, where BB guns and Montessori don't mix. But last week, Indigo was at his uncle's house, which means mandatory BB gun training.

Back at the sporting-goods store, the cashier - all of 21 years - promptly carded me.

"You look old enough,'' he said tiredly.

"I certainly hope so."

I don't want to be sentimental, but the act of purchasing a legal firearm - even a BB gun - has lost its thrill.

Maybe I yearn for the days of the old, smocked hardware-store clerk, who wished you good luck and handed you a gleaming new firearm. Today, a firearm transaction is joyless paper shuffling, much like taking your shoes off at airport security. Everyone is awkwardly held in suspicion.

Still, I felt a spring in my step outside the big-box store, with my new BB gun, a carton of 4,000 BBs and two pairs of wrap-around shooting glasses. I also bought paper targets, but everyone knows the best targets are empty pop and soup cans.

So at home, I dug around the recycling and found two cans empty of organic tomato soup. No pop cans were located, soda being verboten in our house.

After lunch (involving organic avocados and nontransfat sandwich bread), I brought out the Red Ryder for Indigo, and for a moment, man and boy felt the mutual rush of firearm excitement I missed at the sporting-goods store. In no time, the backyard shooting range was set up with cans and targets, and a stack of phonebooks became an armrest.

It is amazing how a boy's attention is riveted when a new BB gun lies nearby. Indigo listened intently to the safety instructions as if I were imparting directions for a lunar landing.

He soon mastered the cocking and safety actions, and in no time, the summertime plink, plink, plink of BBs hitting tin cans resonated through the back yard.

The next evening, my stepdaughter and my friend Bob joined us at the shooting range. Bob and I sat, hands in our laps, anxiously waiting our turn at the BB gun. Plink, plink, plink. The BB gun exchanged hands fluidly, safely, no questions asked. Cheers erupted when a can hit the dust.

Storm clouds soon roiled overhead, and the sky darkened, but targets were further punctured and cans reset. No one wanted to quit. Finally, the sky opened up, rain came in torrents, and we scrambled inside and turned off all the house lights and watched lightning snake across the sky.

We age, but summertime joys don't. A boy slumbers through a rainstorm, dreaming of tin cans and maybe big game, while his uncle rummages through the refrigerator, secretly wishing for a cold soda and revisiting the summer of '75.

Chris Niskanen can be reached at cniskanen@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5524.

[GregM]

Nice story --- thanks for posting this.

I never forget the day my older brother came home with a BB gun he had purchased from a friend. Mom acted like it was an unexploded bomb, which I expected to go off at any moment, killing our entire family and obliterating our neighbors as well. This was in 1955, when you could buy an Army surplus rifle for $20 and have it delivered to your door. So Mom was way ahead of her time, since the anti-gun movement didn't get rolling until the mid 60's.

[hammAR]

SO it's all your mom's fault................

.

[GregM]

SO it's all your mom's fault................

.

Nope, I can't blame Mom. Unless my brother was adopted ...

[1911fan]

I remember my mom asking my dad to find a .22 that was small enough for us to shoot. She had a BIG garden and we had rabbits and chipmunks ravaging her berry patchs. He found a H&R at the H&R factory store that the guys there cut down for us, re set the front sight, and made sure it was sighted in, all for $12. We never had bb guns until we moved to a chicago suburb and the neighbor who was a cop had to come over and tell Mom that standing in the garden with a .22 was getting the locals jazzed up. Mom retalliated by hanging every dead possum and raccoon on the fence. and letting them sit there.

[chunkstyle]

I'm reminded of "Christmas Story": "You'll put your eye out!".

Dad had a Daisy repeater, I handled it from earliest childhood. He taught me to shoot .22s, at a father-son "Y" camp, I was maybe 5 or 6, and actually shot very well, for a rookie. Growing up in the South can give one some truly pleasant memories.

[tullibee]

I had a great spot to learn to shoot Dad's bolt action .22 -- Grandpa was caretaker at a 4H camp that had an old dump. plenty of targets available! the best one was an old upright piano!!! it was fun trying to mix it up and twang a whole chord instead of single strings...

[mnglocker]

Mom retalliated by hanging every dead possum and raccoon on the fence. and letting them sit there.

I'd love to have your mom as a neighbor. lol best line I've read all day.