shooting things

[stonewalldog]

Originally Posted by IslandScout

I shot a rabbit when I was 11.

My grandparents lived on a ranch and one afternoon when everyone went out, I stayed home with my grandfather. When I complained to him (perhaps more than once...), that I was bored, he did what had always worked in keeping his boys entertained when they were growing up—gave me a gun and sent me outside. First, of course, he gave me a safety tip: Don't aim toward the house.

I enjoyed having the fields to myself, and felt very important walking around swinging a loaded handgun. Soon I saw a rabbit, and thanks to beginner's luck, I shot him, and carried him back to the house by his hind leg.

I left him on the porch, got a kitchen knife, and went back out to cut his foot off, planning to make a lucky rabbit's foot charm for myself, and take it back to Maryland, where I was about to enter the seventh grade in a new school (my sixth). It took a lot of sawing to get the foot off. Then I wrapped it in tin foil, and buried it deep in my suitcase.

A few days later, when my mother was putting away clean clothes, she smelled the rotting foot, and pulled it out.

Mom: What's this?
Me: A rabbit's foot.
Mom: Where'd you get it?
Me: I shot it.
Mom: Where'd you get the gun?
Me: Granddad.

She stormed off, there was a lot of stage-whispered fighting in another room, and no one ever said another word to me about it.

Years later, after my grandfather died, I brought up the story with my grandmother.

She smiled and shook her head: "He'd let you girls do anything."

Great story!
The first critter I shot by myself was a rabbit. It was on a Sunday when I was 12 or 13. Anyway, I took the single shot .410 out by myself and eventually found and shot the rabbit. I brought it home and went to get my dad. He was watching football on tv. I told him what I had done and asked if he would help me clean it. I told him that I didn't want him to clean just show me how. He looked all confused and said he would be right outside as he went into his bedroom.
I sat outside with the dead rabbit for, what seemed like, forever. Finally, he came outside holding a box. It was a Buck knife box. He said he bought the knife awhile back to give to his son which ever one was the first to shoot game without him. He said I had earned it so he was giving it to me. Boy...were my brothers jealous.
My dad was a good man and I miss him. I still have that knife.