Bench Rest Central has a lot more pictures, and, quite frankly, a lot better than the ones *I* took. You might want to go there to see what some one that wasn't like a doe caught in the head lights of a car in mere awe of being there and around these guys and what they can do. If you'll notice, I even got the dates wrong on my camera. That's okay though, I'll make up for that by giving some links in the pictures---click on them for a look see!
I got the call a little before mid morning Sunday. I was supposed to meet with Will sometime the weekend or Friday but, honestly, had forgotten all about it. I was looking forward to a day staying in my pajama's (what we'll say I wear around the house) as long as I possibly could growing roots from my couch potato bum recouping from and overly active day on Saturday herding my motley crew doing much needed yard work here.
(Ring!) "hellllo" (gotta draw that out, you know, I *am* born and raised in the South!)
"Will?"
"Yea,???"
"This is Will!"
(!!!!)
"Oh, crap! I had forgotten all about you coming, Will!" Are you at the shoot?"
Well, from there on it turned out that he'd roped me into coming to the shoot after reading off some directions. It was only about 25 minutes and less as the crow flies from my place over in North Charleston, SC.
I got my out of doors hat, grabbed my cane, loaded up my wheelchair and ALMOST turned right around to go back in and call Will with some excuse that translated meant that it was just to dad burn hot!
But, I'm glad I didn't. I'm skittish around new folks and it's good for me to get out now and then. Boy am I ever glad that I did!
I got there and met up with Will Piatt and his wife Ginger. GREAT people! Wish I could transplant them here. I was really mad at myself for not pushing my wife a little harder to come with me but, she was right, she had errands to run and what not. So, my hard working wife was not a bull's eye for my alternative agenda for yet another day.
When I pulled into the place . . . sort of hard to find even if you are from here (and why I put a link in with one of the pics to it) the temp was, according to my spot on report in my rear view mirror (gotta love these whistles and bells in these new cars and trucks!) was exactly 102%. This is an accurate report. This is not a heat index. This is the actual temperature it was when I GOT there and it only got hotter later on since this was just after mid morning!
Humidity was about 80 percent and got worse when it rained a little bit. These are dedicated people, people, and I honestly was impressed just by this dedication if nothing else to withstand this type of punishment to enjoy such an event. I'm *from* here and we don't endure this type of weather well either!
Right away I started sweating bullets. Part of it was that I'd never actually met Will Piatt before with only the net as our previous medium and communications that struck up our original friendship and business dealings. But I got over that PDQ as I got lost in the awe of where I actually was at the moment. I felt like this little kid that mom wouldn't let go of his hand so he could run and explore the fair grounds at Fair time to see all the sights and sounds. There was even the smell of hot dogs and fast foods and event type cooking in the air! Been a while since I was at a carnival but that's the best way to describe the smell mixed in with gun oils, rolling heat and sweat.
After some ice breaking chit chat, Will took me up to the "red line" and rattled off a good bit of what I needed to know right off. Then, later, he had to do his thing and left me to wonder about the place taking a few pictures here and there. I've more of what I show here but they aren't near as good as some of the others like on the site I've referenced. I took shots of things like the back of a guy's shirt because I just couldn't get over the the Czechs were there, the Germans were there, and the list goes on, and on.
I wondered until you could have stuck a fork in me 'cause I was "dun, son"! I rolled back to where I'd started for a break in the shade. Then took off again.
That's when Ginger, Will's wife found me and took me around for a little introductions. I know I must have seemed star struck. I just couldn't get my mouth to work right or rattle off my air gun list when we were talking about them. What a nervous ninny I was!
I talked with Tod Banks and Dan Brown and was amazed to hear that Dan had shot a perfect 250 the day before and truly amazed to hear him say that he'd been into air guns for only a year or so! (There is hope for your's truly if this is really so!)
Tod Banks and I had started a conversation that led to an air gun he's got and I'm really sorry I didn't get more info on it now since I've been bitten by the air gun bug even harder and need to get something that I can suitable to shoot in competition. Anything in my list in my signature, as you can see, isn't anything that I could take to a match that I know of. If anyone out there has contact info for him or Tod Banks himself reads this, I'd sure appreciate a line on how to shoot him a line! Was a nice gun from what we talked about and my even be within my price range----depends.
Well, anyway, I've posted the results of the scores and a few pics.
The first pic I've listed here was on Sunday before the results were in. Ginger, Will Piatt's wife had taken me around and these are some of the pics I took on that safari.I'll get the names of all those shown later and edit this post to list them.
- L-(standing) Tim McMurry, seated Doug Miller, R-(standing) James Burciaga
- Pic 2 L- Dan Brown, C- Rick Ingraham, R- Todd Banks
- pic 3: Rick Ingraham, Todd Banks, R- Standing ????
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