I am a closer-to-forty-than-I-want-to-be wife and mother. For twelve years, I was a single mother of three children. Two years ago, I fell in love; last year, I got married and am currently living my Happily Ever After.
The twelve years before that were anything but H-E-A, they were more like H-E-L-L. Not always, but more often than not.
I can't say that I grew up with guns, I mean, we had a pump BB gun that ocassionally we'd take out back and plink, but they weren't a part of our lifestyle. I took Hunter's Safety as part of my Outdoor Ed class in junior high and enjoyed shooting the .22s, but I wasn't really that into shooting. I knew I could handle a gun safely, I could shoot and hit what I was shooting at, but the gun bug hadn't really hit me. I wasn't afraid of them by any means, but I wasn't hot and bothered by them either.
I made the mistake, after my divorce, to fall into a rebound relationship with someone I thought was my friend and confidant. Yeah, watch out for those rebounds, they can be scary. Crazy B and I had worked together for a couple of years and he was a good chunk of years older than me; I don't honestly know if that had anything to do with the attraction. After all, I'd just gotten divorced from an alcoholic, who was really just another child for me to take care of. So Crazy B may or may not have offered stability - I'm sure there are some shrinks out there who will say I was looking for a father figure. Or not.
Crazy B loved to shoot and decided to take me out to teach me how to shoot. Guess what? I was good at it! That's when I started to get interested in shooting; I wasn't completely bitten yet, but I was beginning to feel the fever. He had a couple of wheel guns, Ruger Blackhawks, single action revolvers, that were fun to shoot, but a lot of work having to unload and re-load one round at a time. He also had a S&W 686, a double action/single action chambered in .357 mag, that I enjoyed shooting a lot more. I found that if I loaded it with +P ammo, I could throw a six inch flame out the end of the barrel (first you kill it, then you cook it).
We spent a lot of time at a make-shift range shooting milk jugs full of water and killing paper plates. It was a good time and I never turned it down, but I didn't live for it either. I was only beginning my gun journey.
My dad was a cop. He had a 38 service revolver and he was a sharpshooter. When I was 12, he used to take me to the range with him and let me shoot. I learned gun safety and how to load and unload a weapon. I didn't really care about shooting as much as I cared about the time with my Dad. My husband Alex has a very nice collection of guns. We take them to the range at least once a month for practice. We both love the power and the beauty of these great guns!
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