When I was 10 years old, the laws here in New York State stipulated that bars could not serve alcohol on Sundays before a certain hour, which, as I recall, was noon. An exception was made for "private clubs" and so my father and his buddy, no strangers to a scotch bottle, joined the local rod & gun club (I still belong to it today!).

So when on Sunday mornings he went there to drink, I sometimes tagged along. His buddy had a son my age, and the two of us would occupy ourselves in the parking lot , no kidding, drag racing my dad's new Buick Century Convertible against his father's Chrysler Imperial, both 1956 models. The old guys were too soused to care.

When we tired of that activity, we'd go upstairs to the bar, where the bartender would hand us an H&R Sportsman, some boxes of shells, and send us to the basement range to get us out of the way.

We were 10 years old!

I still have a piece of a bullet in the corner of my eye from a riccochet!