I May Have Created an Enthuaiast!

[ArtPahl]

We have some friends that are about our kids age that live near Chicago. They have three sons, the youngest, Noah, is 14 and will start high school in the fall (if they open schools!). Noah wanted to spend a couple weeks here on the farm with my wife and I. His experience with firearms is near 0.

So yesterday we spent the day at my 100 yd. range here. We spent the morning with him shooting some of my collection of Mossberg .22 auto-loaders. I decided that when the school wanted to study WW!!, I wanted Noah to be probably the only one that had ever handled a WWII combat rifle, let alone fired one (including, no doubt, the teacher). So, after lunch, my 1944 Winchester came out. I didn't trick him; made sure he knew that there was going to be recoil, set him up with glasses, ear muffs, shoulder pad, etc. I had him watch me fire the first 5 rounds and then turned the rifle over to him. He did well; about as well (or maybe better) as I did. 14 vs. 82 year old eyes make a difference. He had fun---so did I. When I told him that the rifle was made in Feb., 1944 as the war was getting hotter for the US, I don't think it registered. But when I had him read the barrel date of SA 11-43, then he was impressed.

Maybe I made a dent in his generation. One old man and one old Winchester tried, anyway.

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