Recently, my cousin showed up here, in Island Park, for a visit. Growing up, he and I lived less than a mile apart. We were closer to each other than to our own brothers. Now, we live about 50 miles apart and say hello only two to three times a year. Needless to say, I was more than happy to see him coming down the driveway.
After a short greeting, we went into the house where my wife talked us into a bowl of chocolate ice cream. Ross would never turn down a bowl of any kind of ice cream. We polished off the chocolate ice cream and then grabbed the tub of vanilla.
While gorging ourselves, we started to reminisce. During our conversation, we both agreed our growing up years were ideal for two country boys. We worked hard and played hard—the best part of growing up on a farm.
As I was scraping the last of the vanilla, my cousin asked me if I remembered the day I got a BB gun for my birthday. A smile crossed my face, as I hadn’t thought about that day for a quarter of a century. As it happened, in our family, when we turned eight years old we got a BB gun as our main birthday gift. That morning, Ross drove the Massey Ferguson down to the house carrying his pellet gun. We eagerly headed out to the pasture for some target practice. As we left the house, I will never forget my mother’s words. She said, “You only have two eyes. Don’t shoot one of them out.”
First, we stopped at the corral and drew a face on one of the corral posts. The distorted ugly face even had a cigar sticking out of its mouth. The trick was to see how many times we could hit the cigar. I cocked the rifle, and with all the confidence of Matt Dillon, pulled the trigger. The BB hit the evil face but then it came flying straight back toward me. I wasn’t fast enough to duck. The shiny little pellet hit the bridge of my nose right between my eyes.
After I was able to focus, I looked at Ross and his eyes were big as saucers. Luckily, there was no serious injury to me other than a damaged ego.
Next thought was my mother’s words, “Don’t shoot your eye out.” How was I going to explain what happened and take a chance of losing the BB gun. So, we devised a story about how I bumped into a 20-penny nail sticking out from a slab on the corral fence. To this day, I don’t know if my folks really believed me. But I kept the BB gun and my eyes for years to come.
Flash forward to 1983. “A Christmas Story,” with Peter Billingsley, came to the theaters and my own BB gun memories came flooding back. I believe it was his mother who said, “You’ll shoot your eye out!” I wonder if Ralphie ever came clean about how his glasses were broken? My folks have passed away so I won’t be telling them what really caused the large knot on my nose all those years ago.
By this time, my cousin and I had consumed all the ice cream in the house. I suggested we head to Sam Patch’s grocery for another couple of gallons. He said he enjoyed the walk down memory lane but needed to get home.
As I look back at the experience, 63 years ago, did I learn anything from the BB hitting me between the eyes? Dang right I did! It hurts like the dickens to get hit in the nose by a ricocheted, deflected, boomeranged, stupid BB.