I may have to recant my previous story, as
@pharmer's triggered a memory.
We have all seen "A Christmas Story"(I hope
), where Ralphie is constantly being told that he will shoot his eye out. And then lo and behold...
Well I had just gotten a Crosman Seven Sixty single pump, for Christmas. I was ten. The pine root stumps that lined the drive, all half mile of it, were frozen over in a beautiful glaze of ice. I went a put a soda can on one of the frosted root branches. I walked back a long distance, perhaps too far, maybe luckily far enough, and proceeded to recreate the famous scene.
I remember missing the can low, the BB bouncing back and getting bigger and bigger. Thank the Lord for the slight loss of energy that caused the BB to strike me directly below the eye, leaving a small blue bruise. Luckily, again, too small to be noticed by my mother. If she found out, my Dad would have never heard the end of it. Mostly for letting me unwrap it, tossing me a can of BBs and saying go have fun. Safety tips? Who needs those!
Oh, if we still had that ten acres on the Haymarsh... A boys haven it was...frogs, snakes and lightning bugs...
I have a picture of me, asleep in the lawn. The Mighty Hunter, poised and ready, snoozing, with the muzzle of that BB gun pointed at the hole of a gopher...
I've been cutting concrete all day, must have just brushed some grit in my eye, damn glasses...