1986
The Isaac Walton League on the outskirts of town was situated in a small valley on the Iowa landscape. Part of the Oregon Trail passed through the land and could still be seen where thousands of wagons had left ruts in the soil. The valley was small, maybe three hundred yards long and very steep on both sides. Hundreds of years ago Native Americans drove buffalo into the valley. The animals would charge down one side, then due to their weight be unable to use their velocity to propel themselves up the opposite embankment, allowing the Indians to shoot them from above.
When I was a freshman in high school, my science class went on a field trip to see the ruts left on the Oregon Trail and the archaeological dig the state university maintained for its students in the valley.
Had the land cooperated, the whole area would have been tilled under for farmland, but any tractor would have tipped over on the slope of the valley and it was far too large to be filled in.
To the South, the valley opened and flattened onto the plain of the South Skunk river basin. The hills on this end of the valley were too shallow to slow down the buffalo. There were no arrowheads, no stone knives lost while taking hides to be tanned for blankets or tee pees.
The land had no archaeological value, and the farmers had passed it over as well. In Iowa, a hill is too much hassle to deal with. Even disking the soil, a way of breaking the prairie with less erosion than tilling, leaves a bald fallow mound after a couple of years. This apologetic dip in the land made for a perfect shooting range.
On weekends my mother would take me out to shoot. She would sit on a bench in the shade and read books by John Michael Talbot and other Christian writers - histories of the Benedictines and books on faith, prayer and leading a religious life. Mom didn’t have the same aversion to guns that my dad had, and after the divorce, allowing me to maintain and shoot the rifle was one way of letting go of the marriage.
I would take a few paper targets, pin them to the wooden frames twenty-five yards out, load seven rounds into my clip, and slide the bolt into place. I would align the sights and steady my body for the shot.
Very quickly, I learned that shooting targets has nothing in common with the fast action shooting on TV. Shooting targets is meditative, calm and internally quiet. Shooting targets is about breath. Shooting targets is about patience. Shooting targets is about you, the shooter.