Gotta learn everything the hard way

Since Dad was a Knox County schoolteacher, he had the summer months off at the same time that my siblings and I did. I didn’t realize what a treat that was until after I was grown and had kids of my own. When Dad wasn’t doing garden work, he liked to spend his free time hunting and fishing. He always seemed happiest when he was in a place of solitude, either in the woods under a tree listening for a squirrel or on the lake trying to land a trophy bass. Dad taught me the rules of respect for a firearm and the land. I treasured the outings that I was able to take with him. I would follow in his footsteps and mimic his every move. I tried not to be loud or ask too many questions in fear of aggravating him in some way. We always had a quiet understanding.

On one occasion, Dad and I were on a hunting trip in some woods. I was carrying an old Stevens’s twenty-gauge shotgun that he had passed down to me. He had instructed me not to be “dry firing” the gun because it would break the firing pin and not be able to fire ammunition. Of course, I, in my stupidity, ignored his instructions and had been dry snapping the gun. I had only snapped it 2 times, but on the second snap, I heard the firing pin roll down the barrel of the gun. I didn’t utter a word of this to Dad.

Well, we were strolling along through the woods, when we ran across a snake in the path in front of us. He told me to shoot it with my shotgun. I loaded a shell into the chamber, pulled back the hammer and squeezed the trigger, knowing that nothing would happen, and it didn’t. Dad had always told me that I had to learn everything the hard way, and I knew then that he was right. I could see the disgust in his eyes as he reprimanded me for breaking the firing pin of my gun. I felt ashamed that I had let him down, however, it did teach me a valuable lesson in gun care. Even though that particular hunting trip was ruined, we still had plenty of other good trips, and I never dry fired a gun again.

Moral of the story: Always listen to your parents, and don’t play with guns.