I got a phone call tonight from a Fellon. She tried to harass me, but people always forget that I can generally have the last laugh. The word is mightier than the sword.
Ok, Ok, now let me straighten out this story. The Fellon that called me is actually my son's mother in law. No, she is not really a felon, but she really is a Fellon. That is her last name. She thought she could tease me about a recent situation that occurred to me. The two of us have recently had similar occurrences in our separate lives that have caused us distress. She has had a real bad sinus infection which has caused her serious and uncomfortable nose bleeds and I have recently had a nose bleed too! The only thing however is she had no control over her sickness, but shear dumbness caused me to create my own nose bleed.
I was trying to show off and accidentally hurt myself. You would think that a guy who just turned sixty would have more sense, but alas, I'm a kid at heart and made a dumb mistake. My son and I went to the shooting range to get ready for opening weekend of deer season. I'm a lazy hunter and really don't even hunt anymore, but I try to push myself into believing I will do some serious hunting. The truth is I don't like getting out of bed early enough to climb into a stand. Just the same, I do go to the range every year for that "just in case" opportunity and the trip is a tradition for my son and I (and my son in law – if I can get him to go).
Well this year I decided to shoot my lever action 30-30 with open sight, at 50 yards. I did reasonably well grouping ten shots in a hands span while my son was on the other end of the range shooting a hundred yards with my scoped 30-30. As I stood behind him watching his shooting techniques, I noticed by his body language that he was not happy with his shots. Finally he turned to me and told me he was having some difficulty hitting the bull's eye.
Great, I thought, here is one way for the old man to one up him and I just calmly asked him if I could give it a try. I grabbed the gun and sat down at the bench. I pushed all the sand bags aside as I knew that sitting in a deer stand would not offer the comfort and resting on a stack of bags. No siree I was going to free hand it! I threw the gun to my shoulder and fired off a nice quick round at the target. In a split second after my shot was made I glanced through the scope again at the target and sure 'nuff a nice clean hole just an inch or so away from the bull's eye.
Well, I thought in a nano second, I better quit while I'm ahead and then suddenly a sharp pain began to develop as I felt a warm trickle run down the top of my nose. Ohhhh, you dummy, my mind screamed, show no pain, as I stepped away from the bench and stepped back for my son to gaze at his dad's well placed shot. I moved to the edge of the dark shadows and took the cuff of my old shirt and pressed it hard against my nose when my son turned to me and saw me bleeding.
If you haven't figured it out by now, my showing off made me hold the gun too loosely and when I fired the scope came back and hit me across the nose leaving a nice clean cut across the bridge of my German sized schnotzel. (Yes, I know that is not the right word but that is what my Grandma called it). The whole incident became funny by that time, as the pain had subsided, but it made me think back to my Great Uncle Teddy Vogt. I seem to recall the time as a kid when he showed up at a family reunion with a very badly bruised eye from the same situation. We got to laughing among ourselves as young kids and nick-named him Uncle Scope Eye. I guess I learned my lesson because payback ain't funny.
All in all, the pain and no gain was a good time for my son and I to be together and the harassing phone call from Mrs. Fellon made for a good story. I just can't wait to give you a deer hunting report. It's probably gonna read something like this: I showed up at the ranch this weekend to deer hunt. I got up early, well before sunrise Saturday morning, to head out to my stand. After several cups of coffee and a bathroom stop I decided to take a quick nap before walking to my stand and didn't get up until noon..
- Clifford
