Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition
I went target shooting a lot when I was growing up. We would go out to the shooting range which was a dirt road in the desert mountains outside of town with carved out spots on either side where you shot into the hills. The Pastor, the Youth Pastor, my dad, and me. Eight to ten guns among us. Ear plugs, targets, be they paper, wood or steel, and some soda and sandwiches for lunch. I preferred Pepsi.
When I was fifteen years old, with the last of my paper route money, I paid for, and my dad purchased, a rifle from the local gun shop. The Brady Bill had just passed in Congress and those inclined toward God, Guns, and Glory were in a rush to secure more Guns for God and Glory.
One time there was an old dishwasher that someone had dragged out to the shooting range and left. I grabbed my gun and “shot from the hip,” like an old Hollywood commando, adding to the many holes that were already there and kicking up clouds of dirt around it. The Youth Pastor had also welded a round target onto a hook out of half inch thick iron and had it hung from a wooden crossarm dug into the dirt. With a loud report and a clang! my rifle put dents in it. I was proud. Afterward, I would drive to the Youth Pastor’s house and we would reload ammo in his garage.
I have a scar from the time I grabbed the hook of the round target, slung it over my shoulder, turned around, hit my elbow and split the skin on the side view mirror of the church van parked next to his pickup.
We went out there every few weekends in the spring and summer, armed with rifles and pistols, snacks and targets. There was a time when the Youth Pastor had a friend in town from LA. He had brought a shotgun and a clay pigeon thrower. I had never shot skeet. I hit nine out of ten and bested all of the older folks, including the guy that owned the equipment. Church folks doing God things with guns, the manifest power of deity held in our hands.
Ideologies, thoughts, feelings about certain things change with time but this is the point:
Memories, being first and foremost a function of the imagination (I know I’ve said this before), have interesting and unpredictable half lives. I always remembered from this time my grandpa’s rifle, from maybe the 1930s or ‘40s as a bolt action Winchester. As it stands, now that I have seen it again decades later, it’s an off brand lever action.
Don’t trust me, or you, or our memories completely.
Our histories are a type of fiction we tell ourselves. Memories are pictures that are often constructed in the way we would like to remember things as opposed to actual facts. I try to be honest with them but that is impossible.