by Hap Rocketto
While not quite at the level of Galahad’s quest for the Holy Grail, Jason’s search for the Golden Fleece, Rama’s mission to recover his wife Sita, or Dr. Henry Walton Jones, Junior’s hunt for the Lost Ark of the Covenant I have also set out on a quest from time to time.
On a January day a decade ago, my 55th birthday, I became eligible to vie for the Intermediate Smallbore Rifle Senior Three Position title. Perhaps biting off more than I could chew I rather cavalierly publically announced that I would shoot the match until I won the championship. As luck, and it was certainly more luck than skill, would have it I managed to sneak off with the prize that very year.
Ten years later to the day, and certainly no wiser, I made the same imprudent proclamation for the senior crown. Margaret, my ever patient and wearily indulgent wife, rolled her eyes as I wrote a check with my mouth that she was uncertain my body would be able to cash. In response to me she quoted Marion Ravenwood from the aforementioned Raiders of the Lost Ark saying that, “You’re not the man I knew ten years ago.” “So much for true love,” thought I and to whit I replied ala “Indiana” Jones, “It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage.”
There followed the purchase, against the better advice of my favorite Transcendentalist philosopher Henry David Thoreau who wrote in Walden, “…beware of all enterprises that require new clothes…”of a new set of shooting garments, both a jacket and trousers, ammunition testing, and the writing of a training program.
I was accompanied on this journey by Ernie Mellor who had made a few trips to Perry to shoot Three P and, at 70 years of age, was willing to be my training partner. Tom McGurl, who shoots with us on our winter league team, would also accompany us on this, his first trip to Perry for smallbore.
Charlie Adams, another winter league companion, signed on as our Cornerman. We would also link up with Len Remaly, another senior, who agreed to shoot the team matches with us. With five guys, none younger than 65, it was suggested, perhaps unkindly, by our shooting coterie that we give more consideration to the selection of a defibrillator than to our ammunition.
After ten weeks of hard summer training we arrived at Camp Perry, moved into out hut and readied ourselves for the matches.
The first day opened under an overcast sky and in the middle of the first relay a thunderstorm rolled in causing a range evacuation. After a delay we resumed shooting only to have a quick rain storm rip through during the second relay. Conditions settled for the standing and kneeling match
After day one Remaly was standing tall in the senior category with an 1158-51X. Trailing close behind was Mellor, four points back, at 1154-52X. With a miss in the standing match I was well back carding an 1141-41X. It looked as if I was going to be hoist by my own petard and have to return in 2013 unless I had an outstanding performance with any sights. It would not be an easy task against so talented a duo holding such a lead.
Overnight the tenor of the match changed suddenly. A violent wind storm roared in from Canada like an out of control freight train. Competitors came to the line in the morning to find the numerous tents and easy ups used for shelter little more than scraps of torn nylon and bent aluminum tubing. The 30 mile per hour one o’clock wind was gusting as much as ten miles per hour more and it would last all day. It was a leader’s nightmare.
In prone the winds, and some light rain, buffeted the shooters making it nearly impossible to hold the crosshairs within the ten ring. Having a low center of gravity I managed to pick up a few points on the lean and sinewy Len and the tall Ernie.
Standing would be no cake walk. Just holding the sights on the frame was a Herculean task, never mind in the center of the bull. The wind was so wild that there were whitecaps in my bladder! My 304-3X, even with two misses, stood 40th in the field of nearly 300 shooters and allowed me to make up some of the distance between Len and gain a little on Ernie.
It would, as it always seems to, come down to kneeling.
The senior title was settled in the any sight kneeling match. Len and I went hammer and tongs knowing that the results of the match would determine the winner. In the end I built on the small surplus I had squirreled away in standing and my 355-3X against Len’s 354-5X gave me the edge. The ever gracious Len and Ernie offered me firm handshakes and smiles.
As soon as the final bulletin was posted I called my wife to tell her the good news, reclaim her true love, and tell her that I was, mileage or not, indeed, the man I was ten years ago.
I enjoyed your article, and sense of humour I am a shooters wife and ex shooter myself My husband and I have both represented our Country and have had keen competition over the years and I must say he has been very gracious when I have beaten him. (Clever Man) We met through shooting when he was 22 and I was only 20 he was a Master grade shooter at the time and I was very much a newcomer, I thought that he was very arrogant but later learned that it was competitiveness not arrogance and it was a trait that I found I also had. 43 years later although I no longer shoot he still does small bore only now but I keep my firearms licence still just in case.