Stories
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
The main remembrance and hard to forget, the kind of thing that makes one sweat when one thinks what could have happened, and how it would have changed one's whole life. I could have easily shot my brothers head off.
We were across the channel from the swamp in an empty lot, me my brother four years younger, and a couple others, maybe redhead Smitty, think he had a shotgun as well. I pumped the pump and the gun went off, without my finger being anywhere near the trigger. My brother was sitting or kneeling in front of me and I standing. It was very lucky for both of us that I had the gun pointed in the air. This gave me my first pause about this hunting thing. Not at first of course --- one might shake it off quickly --- but it scared me later on reflection. I have read since that a certain make of shotgun of the period would go off inadvertently causing any number of accidents and I must have had that model.
The second pause was when my friend Christo came over one day, and of course I had to show him my new gun in the parking lot. He gets out of the car and asks if he can hold it, and then if he could shoot it. I says sure OK, and he aims at a little sparrow sitting on a tree branch and boom, pump-boom, pump-boom, pump-boom, about as fast as you could say it. A few feathers came floating down from where the bird had been and he says, "You do it like that - eh, eh ?" That was the only shooting I ever saw him do. He didn't seem interested, although he never said why or anything about it.
(2 of 8)
Next Page
