Read the whole collection here. In April , after seeing pervasive and constant billboard advertisements since my youth, I decided to go to the gun show in my hometown. I should preface this by saying I do not own a gun. Despite the fact that I am from texas, I did not grow up around guns. I have shot exactly two guns in my life. The first was a Sig Sauer handgun, chosen for me by the man at the gun range on "Ladies Night" when I asked him to "give me whatever kind of gun FBI agents use.
Growing up, I had never actually seen that gun in real life. It lived like a myth within a faded yellow shoebox at the top of Mom and Daddy's walk in closet. My sister and I were told only two facts pertaining to its existence: 1 there was a gun, and 2 I should never, ever touch it under any circumstances.
I finally got to see Daddy's gun when some friends from college flew in with me from Chicago and decided they needed the "full Texas experience. Daddy agreed to go with us to the range, and I had the privilege of cradling the legend in my hands. Out of the shoebox, it was bigger than I imagined, and heavier, too. When we stood before the targets, he let me take the first shot. I held it in my hand, felt the weight. I held it up and barely got one shot off. After I pulled the trigger, I was knocked back like I'd been pushed down on a playground.
When Daddy took his turn, I was disappointed that the recoil nearly knocked him down as well. The target he was aiming for, a bale of hay in the distance, was barely grazed near the bottom.
Go for the knees? My college friends stuck to the small. So as a non-gun person headed toward the gun show, I didn't know what to expect. The show itself is held in the former site of Big Town Mall. Big Town was an anchor property for our small town growing up, and the first indoor mall in the southwest, complete with air conditioning.
