Not your Daddy’s Daisy Penetration @ 640 FPS

The day I blinded the neighbors.

In 1956 I was seven years old and living on my fathers ranch in central Oregon. I had free reign of the country side, a Red Ryder BB gun, a Barlow knife and a old Border Collie, it was a great place to grow up.

The closest neighbor was one mile away and although they had kids my age, we went to different schools and I never met them until our paths crossed while hunting 5 years later. The countryside was wild and remote and it was a constant adventure for me to explore on foot or horseback.

Town was 20 miles away, so we ordered a lot of our clothing and shoes out of Sears and Roebuck. Of course I idolized my father and he always preached to me to wear boots, so at 7 years of age I went shopping in the pages of Sears for my first pair of new boots.

I found a pair of knee high boots that later in life I came to know as linemans boots, they were made from heavy leather, had a massive toe cleat in front for kicking rocks and a cleat in back, on the side was even a holder for my Barlow knife.

They were undoubtably the most painful pair of boots I have ever worn.

They were a childs version of a linemans boot, I fell in love with the picture of them in that catalogue and it was the very beginning of my boot affliction, I am on my 2nd pair of Tony Lama elephant skin boots had several made of various serpents and even some Alligator ones and perhaps had 20 pair of Danners like the Rainforest, elk hunter, Ft lewis boots and Winter Lights.

It took four weeks to deliver those boots once I conned my parents into buying them, if I remember right, they cost around $10.00 and for my parents making a ranch payment and earning $400.00 a month logging, ranching and what he could at rodeo’s it was a lot to spend on a 7 year old kids feet.

I walked to the mail box, 2/3rds of a mile trip every day waiting for those boots to arrive, with my cow dog Pooch and my Red Ryder, then one sunny July day, while on vacation between first and 2nd grade, there was this huge box sitting beside the mailbox, too big to put inside, the Mail lady had left it sitting beside the mailbox.

I knew it had to be my boots.

My Barlow made quick work of the box as my Border Collie watched me rip at the packing with his head cocked sideways and soon I had those boots on and laced all the way up to my knees, proudly I folded the Barlow and stuffed it in the side pocket and stiffly started walking towards the house.

The boots were made of very heavy leather and I was soon to find the heartbreak of blisters and new cheap boots but I had one big threshold of pain to experience first in the folly of my youth.

As I walked along, trying the toe cleat out on the red cinders lining the side of the road, it occured to me that they were so heavy in construction that I could probably put the muzzle of my Red Ryder on my toe and shoot it and I would not even feel it.

A half dozen more stiff legged kicks at cinders and pine cones and I cocked the lever back, raised my toe up in the boot, settled the muzzle against it throu gh that heavy leather that would protect my toe from anything on this earth and touched it off.

Instantly I found myself writhing on the ground in white hot pain with a crimson hot glow radiating out in a throbbing constant flow, it was the blinding red light of my little 7 year old asshole throbbiing in and out in pain.

Neigborhood men working in the fields fell from their tractors stunned in the blinding red flash, their wives hanging laundry on the line in a radious of 2 miles around our little ranch house driveway were blinded by that glaring red light raidiatng out from my ass as I franticly worked at the lacings to rip that horrible boot off my throbbing toe.

My dog looked at me again with his head cocked as if to say,”I’m just a dog but I am smarter than that.” And of course being a Border Collie he undoubtedly was.

I learned a lot that day, a lot has changed and lot has stayed the same.

I stilll play with BB guns, I still love good boots and Border Collies, but today as I dug a grave for one of our old dogs, the Drozd lay against a stump the firing mechanism switched off nearby as my Danners pressed against the shovel bit, and I remebered why it is best to simply not shoot yourself in the toe.

Regards,

Roachcreek

Riff,

And wear shooting glasses, especially if your like me and only have one headlight left ❗

I got my first Drozd, the Bubble Bee years ago. At the time I had many friends who owned machine guns and subguns with cans.

I knew I would never hunt with one, and never wanting to shoot another person, I knew I would never use one in combat, so the Drozd made perfect sence.

It shot at the same ranges as a Mac 10 and was quieter than a Mac 10 with a can, and most importanltly, I did not need to pay an extra $400.00 in transfer taxes to obtain it.

It was fun, not as powerful as this one by a long shot, no pun intended, and required constant reloading of either cartridges or BB’s.

I think it is just a great bargain.

RC