Okeedokee. Here's some pix.
So, the night before, I'm wrestling the screen tents out of the garage rafters, my basic plan being to dock them end to end, so as to contain the airshot. Upon doing this, the range is preposterously short, so I dig out a tarp, thinking to use that as a center segment.
As I'm working on the tent, I'm reviewing the evidence of opposition that has occurred. The bottom line on that is that a few people tried to raise objections without "owning" them, passively casting them in terms of "a concern has been raised". I'd considered my response, and passed back through the grapevine this response: "I simply don't respond to vague and anonymous "concerns", because they're categorically impossible to address. If anyone has a genuine concern, I'll be happy to take it up with them, and I remind people that participation is voluntary."
No one objected squat directly to me, before or since. The basic dynamic of the thing was that 1 or 2 agitators had tried to work behind the scenes to muster some support, had gotten nowhere, and was generally told to sit the heck down and let it go. It'll be interesting to see what they come up with next year.
Alas, sigh, I have only mini tarp on hand, and must run out to obtain Maxi tarp. I set the two screen tents about 20 feet apart, and think to use MaximusTarpus as a bridge between them. After much sweating, and, truth be told, cursing, I find that Maxi tarp is actually big enough to cover the whole shebang, thus:
I hung up a few CDs to test the range, and within minutes, I was mobbed by kids, so I let 'em in, one at a time. This boded...well.
Darkness descending upon the land, I decide to call it a night.
Awaking at the crack of dawn to sort out the signage, interior, and everything else before showtime @ 10:30, I am greeted with disaster:
As I headed out to inspect the damage, I wasn't certain what to expect. The thought of sabotage honestly crossed my mind, but I figured I'd let the evidence speak for itself. It turned out to be entirely wind damage, without any sinister elements, or permanent damage.
I commenced sweating and cursing, and had the tent back into operational shape about 40 minutes later. Racing against the clock, I setup the range for "plinking mode":
, slapped the signs on, grabbed the safety glasses, and looked around to see what was missing.
D'oh!
Rifles would help. I had the girls fetch them:
A few minutes later, at the stroke of 10:30, the guy kitty corner across the street started blaring his ancient collection of patriotic vinyl, and the block party is officially started. I plunk in the chair, waiting for the mob of kids to arrive.
And I wait.
And I wait.
***?
The across the street neighbor drops over, seeking refuge from his neighbor's noise system, and we shoot the bull for a while, and eventually decide to heck with it, WE were gonna shoot.
Two mags later, we turn around, and an even bigger mob of kids is back, staring through the tent door, wide eyed!
"THIS IS AWESOME! THAT IS THE BEST GAME! CAN WE PLAY?"
Two hours of tincan carnage later, I have to chase them all out, so as to be able to get some lunch. I racked the guns in the house, hung the "Closed, keep out sign" up, and headed for the chow tent. {Sorry, I'm not going to post pix of other people's kids on the net...doesn't strike me as kosher.}
Along the way, I'm getting winks & nods from folk, and it gradually dawns on me...the neighborhood is INFESTED with gunnies. Way more than I'd thought!
W00t!
Anyway, as I'm passing through the tent, two older women I don't recognize ask me how the shooting gallery is going. "Oh, it's going fine. Shooting stuff is always an outright hoot!" At that point, they said something so surreal that my mind grasped the essence of the meaning, but I cannot quote the words themselves. Their reaction indicated that they thought that we where shooting live animals with real guns under tarp. {Houston: ***? No, really! ***? Over?} I blinked slowly at them, as if they'd just grown spare heads, and realized I was in the presence of the agitators. "No," I explained slowly, keeping my wits and friendly demeanor about me, "why on EARTH would anyone do that? We're shooting paper targets and tin cans, that sort of thing, with underpowered air guns that shoot plastic pellets. "Oh, thank goodness", they replied. They then proceed to ask about the tarp, indicating they thought it was "to prevent people from seeing the shooting." I explained that the tent and tarp was a safety measure, to contain the pellets so I didn't have to worry about eye protection for bystanders. I don't know how much sunk in, but I did invite them to come on over and check it out for themselves. They declined as if I'd just offered them a dead muskrat to go with their beverage. Shrugging, I rejoined the festivities.
About an hour later, it was time for the shooting contest proper to begin, and I shortly had two long lines, one for kids, and the other for adults. The best kid shot 37/50, and 3rd place was taken by a girl. (You go, girl!) The adult first prize went to a guy who shot 39/50.
The last shooter up was my neighbor, who was shooting mostly for fun. She was having a hard time, having an eye dominance issue, and shot a tight group...in the upper corner of the paper. Knowing her husband was a hunter, we decided to play a trick. Since no one was looking, I quickly reshot her target for her, scoring 41/50, theoretically putting her in first place. She had some serious fun with him, till we let him off the hook. It also turns out that he's a _serious_ hunter, with several safaris under his belt, another planned for the fall, and a crack shot. He took 3 or 4 practice shots to get on the X ring, and then casually shot a perfect 50. Then he proceeded to shoot the 10 ring completely off the paper.
He smiled at me. I smiled at him.
Did I mention that I love my neighborhood?
I can't wait for next year.
