Mr. Jim Brown was a truck driver out of Iowa enroute to deliver a rather large church steeple to its destination. While planning his route, he included a stop specifically to participate in the NC State shoot that year.
Jim was on a mission to shoot every state shoot in the country and took the opportunity join us when his business brought him near.
We (Jim Wilson post 4, Darvin Cornett post 5, me post 1and I don’t recall who was on post 3) welcomed Mr. Brown to join us on post 2.
We took the line for the preliminary singles event as scheduled. This event was being shot 50 per trap.
As soon as we completed the first box and checked the scores we went to the bench to get the next box of shells for round two. Without saying anything, Jim Brown put a box in his holder, picked his stainless Ljutic mono gun out of the rack and went straight back out to the line.
Side note. His mono gun had the tallest rib I had ever seen at the time, It was all of 4” high- you could have used it for a ladder…..
We finished the second box, picked up our stuff and headed for the next trap. As soon as we got there, Mr. Brown again grabbed his shells, went straight to his post and stood there leaning on his gun looking around.
Now, Jim W, Darvin and I aren’t slow by any means. We gave each other a questioning look as in what the heck, shrugged our shoulders and headed to the line.
We finished the 3rd box and again went to retrieve the last box of shells for the event. This time however we asked Jim B if we had done something to bother him or, were we too slow for his liking? He laughed and then said, remember, I’m from Iowa. We don’t have many real trees, just some tall shabby bushes that pretend to be trees. These are REAL trees and I’m just admiring them.
We all laughed with him then and proceeded to complete the event. When done, Mr. Brown jokingly mentioned that we were poor hosts not letting him win as a couple of us had bested him by a few targets. He more than made up for it as he shot quite well the rest of the week.
This is yet another one of the great things about this sport we have the privilege to participate in. The people that travel through our lives and leave us memories and stories to tell.
The Shooter Information Center indicates that he last registered targets in 2017. I don’t know if he completed his 50 states goal or not. I hope he did.
See you next time wherever it is. Travel Safe. Dan
NCHOF 2005
Silver Dollar early 2000's with that stainless Ljutic..