This “stuff” was a few years ago and the initial occurrence was during the NC State shoot. In case I haven’t mentioned it before, if you’ve not yet done so, you need to come shoot at the NC Home Grounds in Bostic.
There used to be a group of us that regularly shot together when we were at the Home Grounds. Included in this group was…….(I’ll just call him Brad}.
We were always very competitive with each other, none of us wanting to be “that guy”, you know, the low man on the squad. With that, we were always supportive of each other through every event, each wanting the others to do well. Great camaraderie. But,slip up and the abuse would begin.
Often, we would take turns starting on different posts. Ya gotta shoot them all anyhow and, you don’t have any control over where you start in a shoot off. We all need to be prepared for that.
Bragging rights were always at stake. We were never above slipping the needle into each other in between boxes either. The only problem there is that Karma is a witch, often an instant witch. As in as soon as you start talking crap, you get bit in the rear.
Later in the evening overeating while enjoying some delicious meal, scores and happenings of the day’s events would be rehashed, relived, argued, defended, denied or acknowledged. The details of each were dependent on the perspective of who was telling the story and/or who or what the story was about
We had yet another bluebird day for one of the preliminary singles events. We drew one of the fields near the right end of the line. We got on the pads and were just pounding targets. Then it happened. “Brad” dropped one early, like on the second post of that box.
Now, we had been there before, several times. When someone on the squad missed, everybody else tightened up doing our absolute best to not let the offender off the hook. We would go so far as to draw a hangman on the scoresheet next to the unfortunate person's name when we succeeded in “hanging” them.
We kept it together and hung “Brad” on that box. As soon as the final shot was fired and the target broken, we heard “Yoooou B@st@rdz” with a very distinctive pronunciation from poor “Brad”. Now, that wasn’t the first or the last time any of us had been or were hung on that squad, What it was is one of the most memorable. That is where it came from. All in the name of fun and games.
See you next time wherever it is. Travel Safe! Dan