How about having Extreme Writing Now delivered to your email box? Input your e-mail address below! This list is private and we won't spam you. This is my entry for the Monkey Brain memoir prompt and contest. Before his detached retina and brain atrophy, my dad was a familial legend…
Dad is a natural. I believe that application of his instinctive curiosity helped hone that trait too. He has no special training in anything he sets his mind to, yet he excels in everything that holds his interest.
When he left his childhood home in the Foothills to the Appalachians, Dad went to the Big City of Columbus for a while, then on to Dayton where he hired on at the L.M. Berry Yellow Pages as a photographer. No formal training, no previous experience, no camera, just his interest and natural ability.
He had another interest that led to at least on amazing show of self taught skill. Dad loved shooting long barreled weapons, especially anything rifled. His aim was always true, if not a bit lucky at times.
During one of visits to his mother’s place on that mini-mountain top, two of my cousins had their .22 rifles out and were across the field target practicing. I was 12 or 13 at the time, my cousins 13-14, which would have put dad in his late 30’s.
The boys were using a small rise as a backdrop for their targets; bottles, cans, and other typically doomed items were their prey. And, they decided they were going to try something they saw in a movie; they were going to shoot the head off of a match at 20 yards.
That match stood proud for the better part of an hour; that is until Dead Eye Dad walked out to see what they were doing.
He let them talk him in to taking a shot at the match. Apparently his shooting skills had been the center of many conversations when he wasn’t around, and the boys just had to see it in action.
Dad took the rifle, lifted it to his shoulder, briefly looked down the barrel and popped off a round.
“You boys go and take a look,” he told my cousins.
The two came scrambling back and were awestruck as they showed him the headless match.
Dad smiled, handed the gun to one of the boys, turned and started to walk away. The boys tried to get him to do it again, prove that he really was that good.
Over his shoulder as he was walking away,”You guys saw me do it once, if I do it again, that would be bragging.”
Dad told me years later that the shot was largely luck, and that he almost couldn’t keep from laughing for that entire walk back across the field.
I’ll never see the luck in that shot. I’ll always see my dad excelling at something he loved to do.
By the way, my father never hunted. He just liked to shoot.
© 2010, Alex Crabtree. All rights reserved.
A familial legend, indeed. I loved this story, Alex. It’s clear that the nut (meant in the kindest way) doesn’t fall far from the tree.
RT @Drifter0658: Dead Eye #Dad http://goo.gl/fb/ObrXl #memoirs #alexcrabtree #memoirs #monkeybrain
So this must play at least a small part in the inclusion of guns in many of your stories. This is a great story and I think that I would have loved to have known your Dad!
I see “luck” not within twenty miles of that shot.
Revisited: Dead Eye Dad – This is my entry for the Monkey Brain memoir prompt and contest. Before his detached… http://is.gd/hOILA #ewn