Way of the Gun, Part 2

In part 1, I wrote about how my family lived and worked around guns. In fact, I grew up in a community where many people owned guns, presumably for hunting or sport shooting. I can only recall one time I know of where someone took it up a notch.

My dad sold a horse to a guy. The guy called to tell my dad the horse wasn't any good, and he wasn't going to pay my dad the agreed-upon price. My dad told my mom he was going to the guy's house. He would either come back with the horse or the money. Instead, he came back with this story:

My dad had let Cliff take the horse without paying because the asking price was pretty steep, and because he was tired of pasturing him. When my dad got to Cliff's house, Cliff told him the horse wasn't worth $800, but he would pay $500. My dad said Cliff shouldn't have agreed to pay it if he wasn't interested and that he would like his horse back. Cliff said the horse wasn't there and he could not easily return him. At this point my dad had neither the money nor the horse, and was understandably pissed. He admits he hauled off and hit Cliff first. Cliff told the other two guys that were there to hold my dad. My dad figured he was about to get the crap beat out of him, so he took off towards his car (Yes, a car. Not sure how that would have worked for bringing home a horse!).

Before he got to the car, he heard the unmistakeable sound of a gun being cocked. Instead of getting in the car, which was a piece of crap, he jumped in the bushes beside the driveway. Cliff shot the car up pretty good, and then must have realized what he had done and disappeared back into the house. My dad drove the car home, where he took pictures and called the sheriff. My dad got his horse back, but the story doesn't end there.

The next day, Cliff showed up at the ER with heart attack symptoms. He filed a lawsuit against my dad for his medical expenses and for his distress. My dad filed a counter suit for the car. The case actually went to court, where it was revealed that Cliff had a history of heart trouble and that nothing had been wrong with him on the day in the suit. The judge dismissed his case. He did find Cliff liable for my dad's car as well his legal expenses. Cliff tried to appeal that the amount was too much of a burden, even though it was not much more than what he had agreed to spend on a horse. My dad said that he was happy with the ruling, and would accept a payment plan.

For three years, my dad received a check for thirty-some odd dollars every month. I asked him once what he did with it. He said he cracked up at the thought that Cliff had to think about it every time he wrote the check, then he took my mom out to dinner.

Way of the Gun

I grew up around guns. My dad has always owned numerous guns, including hand guns, antique guns, and guns of questionable ownership. My brother and I were allowed to play with toys guns of all sorts, with one unbreakable rule: you never, ever, on penalty of an ass-whipping, pointed the gun at a living thing and pretended to shoot it.

Sometimes, my dad made his living thanks to guns. My dad operated a guide and outfitting business. Every fall, people from around the country paid my dad big amounts of money to camp in a tent and hunt deer and elk. He finally quit doing this because the combination of regulation on federal land and the dwindling access to private land made the business cost-prohibitive. He did not quit this business when any of the following occurred:

A hunter failed repeatedly to use the safety feature on his gun. While leaning back to ride under a low-hanging branch, the man's gun went off. It spooked his horse, who took off. The man, being about as good at horseback riding as he was at responsible gun use, slipped off the horse and got dragged for a ways down the trail. He stood up and threatened to sue my dad for negligence in keeping a dangerous animal. My dad pointed at where the shot had taken a chunk out of poor Bonnie's butt, and informed the man that there would be two horses asses in court if that was the case. The man shut up, and did not come hunting with that group again.

Another hunter drank too much one night in camp, and decided to play William Tell. He managed to fire off one shot at the coffee cup his friend was holding up at the other end of the cabin before he was ordered to pack his gear. My dad brought him out that night and dropped him off at the airport.

That was the most serious offense. There were also many other stories over the years, plus a semiannual event that didn't even involve guns. With every group, my dad would warn the clients about building too big of a fire at night, or getting their gear too close to the stoves. About every other year, one of them would either forget or not pay attention and manage to light up their ammo. This is sort of entertaining in a controlled environment, but as you can see, deer camp is sometimes hard to control.

The point is, I was raised to have a lot of respect for guns. I also learned the importance of avoiding people and situations who do not have that same respect. Mostly I learned that people with enough disposable income to pay to hunt with my dad also tended to be assholes.

Bittersweet

I haven't posted in so long because a: I have been busy and b: I have so many things going through my head at any given time that I have a hard time focusing on just one idea. Any attempt to post usually winds up being just another list of random thoughts. To wit:

• I have decided that something I hate even more than I hate reality TV - the morons who watch it, and perpetuate its very existence. On the other hand, the lack of intelligent programming means I finally got around to watching The Other F Word, which was funny and poignant and a little disturbing but mostly though-provoking.

• Paul Thorn at the Rev Room was amazing! He is like a younger Steve Goodman, only in the persona of a meth head preacher's son from Mississippi.
• The school shooting in Connecticut - almost a week later and I am still trying to wrap my head around the awfulness of it.
• Not ready for Christmas at all. I should be making chocolates instead of blogging, travel plans are undecided, and damn it all to hell, I am not going to get through it without a trip to Wally World. I am such a failure :-/
• Actually looked for signs of my old friend Bubba today. Maybe because I have too much alone time lately, maybe because I am feeling very disconnected from the people in my life, maybe just because.
• How I am one of the only people in my family to have gone to college. It didn't make me any smarter than most of them, but it did certainly give me a broader view of the world than some of my idiot cousins.
• I finally have a smart phone. I never thought I "needed" one but I like it, when I can get it away from my kids : )
• Feeling guilty I have not completed the anthology for writers' group. I am always very motivated when I leave the meeting, but then lose steam. I have decided I would get more from critique group if I could work it out.
• "Single life" is turning out to not be so different from married life. B and I seem to be doing alright this week. D has a shiner and L is about to lose a tooth. Other than looking like a total welfare family as we drive down the street, life is OK.
• Loving the Broncos this year. Still not Peyton Manning's biggest fan, but he has raised the bar for some players who were merely promising before.

OK, finally getting my head cleared. Time to make truffles. Last night's were white rum. Tonight it's bittersweet orange. They are not as pretty as Dianna's, but they are soooooo good.

Oh yeah, and for no reason whatsoever, except that he is hot: