The Turkey Shoot

Every Fall in Tyler the local Kiwanis Club holds a Turkey Shoot.  For you non-Westerners, that does not mean we all get together and go hunt turkeys for the Thanksgiving table.  It means that, to support the Kiwanis, we pay a couple of dollars, use their single-shot .22 rifles, and, if we hit the target, we get a free frozen turkey - which we can then use for Thanksgiving dinner.  They also dangle a golf ball from a string and if you hit it you get a free ham!

This isn't nearly as easy as it sounds.  In days gone by you could use your own firearm.  You were used to it.  If it was a good gun, it was properly sighted in; if it wasn't a good 'un you at least knew that it pulled to the left or right.  No, nowadays you have to use their rifle- which may or may not have been cleaned in the last ten years, may or may not have been sighted in, has been fired that morning a hundred times or more...  Not to mention the wind seems to always be howling, blowing your bullet God knows where.  And that golf ball on a string?  It's definitely dancing in the wind - at 50 yards!

No, this is for real shooters.  Like us! And we have a winner!  (Of course.)

 Now it's time for Momma to go for the ham...

And, bam!  Just like that there's a ham to go with the turkey!  Never mess with Texas women 'cause she didn't hit the golf ball - she sliced that string in two with one bullet!  The judges figured that was a fair shot! (We did, too.)  Not unexpected for someone who went to college on a Rifle Team scholarship and qualified "Expert" on National Guard rifle range every year!  That's where she met our son - and he qualified Expert not only with a rifle but pistol and machine gun, too.  (She wasn't required to qualify on anything but the rifle.  But she could always out-shoot our son...)