Fun Times in Small Towns

In a direct response to the lovin' and fightin' songs of the cats in our neighborhood (including and especially our cat), Art made himself a blowgun.

No, I did not marry a normal man. Thanks for asking.

He used a long piece of copper tubing, soldered end pieces on and buffed it until it shined. Then he bought a few darts off the internet and is now ready to play Amazon tribesman whenever he feels the need. (As long as he doesn't dress the part.)

Anyway, the other night we had my family over for dinner, and the neighbors were over to, the way neighbors are sometimes in small towns. It turns out they had a blowgun too, so several of them had a little target shooting contest out in the backyard. Yes, my children are playing on the other end of that swingset.

It reminded me very vividly of one of our favorite childhood pastimes here in this same house. My father was into buckskinning and all the crazy things that entails (Why, you ask? It's complicated, but it had to do with our church boys group called Royal Rangers, which used to be similar to the Boy Scouts.)

He had an oversized chunk of tree stump that he would prop up on a hefty tri-pod he'd made from 4X4s. Then we would use it for target practice.

And I don't mean blowguns. We used a tomahawk, throwing knives and bow and arrows. All with my father there, you understand.

Yes, it made our neighbors nervous. There was one family that always made their kids come inside when we practiced, even though they were allowed to play with us at other times.

I don't know why. We had pretty good aim after all. Of course, the tomahawk's head was a little loose...

Maybe Art's not so strange after all.