by Hap Rocketto
My wife Margaret and I pried ourselves out of the vintage and uncomfortable seats that fill Ward High School’s overused, undersized, and outdated auditorium. We very much like the local productions and attend them with regularity and enthusiasm, despite the seating. Vowing that the next school building referendum would include funds to update the auditorium we stretched. We made our way to the parking lot discussing the Westerly Theater Group’s production of Learner and Loewe’s musical, Brigadoon, the first major hit of the legendary musical pair. It is an old favorite of mine, as I happen to like the Scottish Highland setting, the music, and the fact that the play opened the same year I was born, 1947.
The musical, based on a German story by Friedrich Gersäcker entitled Germelshausen, tells of two American tourists, Tommy Albright and Jeff Douglas, who stumble across an isolated village in the Highlands. Unknown to the pair the town is enchanted and appears only one day every hundred years. Albright falls in love with Fiona MacLaren, the lovely local lass for the play’s boy-gets-girl theme, while comic relief is provided by Jeff’s unsuccessful efforts to dodge the amorous advances of Meg Brockie, the milkmaid.
When we stopped at a local bistro for post play refreshment I couldn’t shake a feeling that there was something more familiar than there should be about the musical. As I toyed with the ball of vanilla ice cream bobbing in my root beer float with my spoon it slowly came to me.
The Brigadoon of my memory happened several years ago when Shawn Carpenter and Milt Beckwith, under the able guidance of Steve Rocketto, were chasing Distinguished. Milt had gotten a new rifle and Shawn, having recently gotten one of the many rifles he unintentionally destroyed back from the shop, needed to get some 600 yard zeros. Connecticut, the third smallest state in the Union, has a paucity of 600-yard ranges. However, Milt lives in a rural section of the state and his property is long and narrow.
Time was of the essence; there were only a few days left until the next Leg Match. Setting out with tape measure and high hopes the trio surveyed Milt’s property and found that they had a safe backstop and 600 clear yards, all within his property lines. No houses, other than Milt’s, were visible or in the danger zone. A couple of hacked up two by fours, some bent nails and hammered thumbs, and a clean target face later the newest 600 yard range popped up like a mushroom on the Beckwith homestead.
Steve repaired to the makeshift pit with a radio to report the location of the shots while Milt and Shawn set up on the firing line. After insuring that the area was clear Milt hammered 20 rounds down range and established a good zero. Next Shawn spread out his mat and set up. They were pretty much oblivious to the fact that in order to get the full 600 yard distance they had to set up on the verge of the road. When one is in the hunt for Distinguished they tend to get fixated on the goal and ignore the reality about them.
In this case the reality was that danger did not exist from flying bullets, they were too shooting safety conscious to allow for that to happen, but rather from passing cars. What they were doing was easily observed by motorists and they were so close to the road that if a startled or curious driver happened to swerve to the right the two shooters would be road kill. As you can see the quest for ‘The Golden Acorn” oft times has a deadening effect on common sense.
Shawn was finishing up his string with Milt hunched over the scope, intent on watching Shawn’s shots, much like Archimedes when the Romans took Syracuse and the centurion who took his life cast a shadow over his calculations. The crunching of tires and the metallic thump of a closing car door did not disturb him, however a shadow did. Milt glanced aside and his eye caught a pair of polished black boots that were sticking out of charcoal gray trouser legs decorated with blue and gold stripes. Looking up further he saw a black belt full of pouches topped by a light gray shirt, and a face whose eyes were shielded by sunglasses and crowned by a neatly blocked gray Stetson hat.
The Connecticut State Policeman politely identified himself. He mentioned that a neighbor had called about the sound of gunfire and he was investigating but, as no laws were being broken, there was no reason that they should stop. “Except for common sense public relations and the good name of gun owners” he said as an aside. “It seems you guys know what you are doing, and you have got real quality stuff,” he continued. There followed a few minutes of good gun talk with a fellow aficionado before he climbed back into his cruiser and drove off.
In less time than it takes to tell they had their gear packed, the target frame dismantled, and the brass they had scattered about policed up. A few minutes they were sitting in the shade on Milt’s front porch, overlooking the range, enjoying a glass of ice-cold lemonade and a plate of Mrs. Beckwith’s famous sugar cookies.
The range had disappeared as if it had never been there. Like Brigadoon it had emerged from the mists of time and to the mists of time it returned. Life does, indeed, imitate art.
