A Practice In Patience

Yesterday we had a little adventure. My daughter and I took a friend of ours out to shoot sporting clays and in the end we had fun. Our friend called us last week and told me he had invested in a 12 ga. shotgun and wanted to learn to shoot it proficiently. He calls it his ‘end of times’ weapon to defend against looters and the like in case of a ‘Katrina-like disaster’, and he has equipped it with a special shoulder harness so that he can sling over his shoulder and then swing the gun into firing position without taking it off. He also has a back pack, flashlight, and other special gizmos that make him feel real cool and well prepared. The flashlight even attaches under the barrel of the gun and looks sort of like a bayonette. He acknowledged several times that we might ‘think he’s a little nuts’.

So anyway, I followed up with our friend on Friday night and after considering the weather we took Saturday afternoon and decided to make a go of it. At first the idea of hanging out with him was appealing. I have always found him rather intelligent and well read, and actually sophisticated in a weird sort of way. But it turned out to be a practice in patience.

First, we had to stop at Walmart to get ammunition. When we went into the store I found the ammunition quickly and put my two cases of 20 ga. shot gun shells on the counter. He went shopping. I had to let him know we were trying to get somewhere and urged him politely to pick out his ammunition and get going. He did as I asked but then just after he signed his receipt for his purchase and we were ready to leave, he decided he needed a hat and went shopping again. I sighed heavily and bit my lip.

On the drive to the sporting club just outside of Danielsville, northeast of Athens, I found it kind of hard to put up with his stories and commentary for the length of time we had to drive to the sporting club, but I never once actually told him to shut up, I simply seemed to ignore what he was saying and talked about where we were going giving my daughter the best advice on driving directions that I could.

When we arrived and checked in with the nice young girl at the club desk, he began by apologizing for being new at this whole thing, and then asked question after question without actually listening to any answer the girl at the check in desk gave us. I couldn’t take it. I interrupted and asked the girl to just explain what the deal was. She smiled and recited the standard operating procedures for sporting clays and the club rules. I thanked her kindly and signed the requisite waiver.
My equipment is straightforward. I have a 20 ga. shotgun and a hunting vest. When we were getting ready to go the range, I opened boxes of shotgun shells, dumped them into the vest pockets, put my vest on and zipped it up. I took my gun out of its case and was ready in mere seconds. It was trying having to wait on our friend to get all his new equipment geared up and situated and such. He had to pack and unpack his backpack a couple of times because he had too many different types of shells, and the plethora of appurtenances he had for his shotgun kept him wondering and changing his mind on how exactly he wanted to strategically approach his assault on the defenseless clay targets. He then took individual shells and placed them in his ammo belt, shoving them each into the snug elastic slots that hold a single shell. When he was finally ready he slung the ammo belt across his shoulder. In his black shirt, military black pants tucked into the top of his military black boots, he resembled an emaciated Rambo. It took him nearly ten minutes to get assembled. I stood and watched thinking that I could have already been through the second shooting station.

As we walked to the first station, it became apparent that I was in much more of a hurry than he was. I stepped up to the wooden shooting station that is like shooting through a large glassless window frame, loaded my shot gun, clicked off the safety, and said pull. Clay targets began flying and shots rang out. I reloaded quickly and said ‘pull’ again. I was through shooting ten rounds in about forty five seconds. I hit a couple and was pleased that I remembered how to shoot. Now it was his turn. Needless to say, he took his time. After taking off his back pack and then putting it back on, I told him he didn’t have to shoot with it on, but he reminded me he was in training for Armageddon. After every two rounds, which the club rules state are the maximum allowed to have loaded at any time, he stopped, breathed purposefully, closed his eyes and appeared to enter a ‘Zen-like’ state. He then reloaded his gun, replanted his feet, checked his alignment, raised his gun to his shoulder, breathed again, and whispered ‘pull’. All of us had earplugs in so it made it hard to hear him say ‘pull’ and several times wondered if he had fallen asleep standing at ready with his shotgun at his shoulder. He repeated this at all of the twelve stations. At Station 6, I reminded him that live game such as doves or quail do not wait on us to be ready. They tend to fly when they want to fly and a hunter needed to be ready to shoot quicker than he was getting ready. It took us nearly two hours to complete a shooting course that could have been traversed in about an hour, including water and pee-pee breaks.

My shoulder is only a little sore as we shot over 100 times at targets flying in all directions from the 12 shooting stations. My daughter even shot a couple of times but she had more fun pulling (pressing a button and causing the clay target to be thrown into the air) and keeping score. Our friend fell asleep on the way home and my practice in patience was ended. My shooting score was 42 out of 102, a smooth 40% efficiency; not bad for not practicing or shooting for at least two years. I scored much worse on the practice in patience – by my account I scored a 20% (meaning that I failed to be patient approximately 80% of time). I’ve got work to do.