Let me just start out by saying that I dreamed of this happening but realistically NEVER expected the following to happen. We went down to New Philadelphia, Ohio this past weekend to participate in the yearly migration to the Pyramyd Air Cup, put on by Pyramyd Air. This is, honestly, a must-go event if you are interested in field target at all. Tyler puts on a great course that is challenging but not crazy hard so beginners and veterans can enjoy two days of wonderful field target courses. We (my daughter Sydney, Eric and Sean) got there Thursday night and set up Eric's camper when we were greeted by the Tusco Militia (to put it lightly) asking for their $15 camping fee. Which is fine and you knew it was coming. The strange part is we were then told that the bathroom shower facilities weren't supposed to be open so there is a "Tip" jar. Wow! That's strange because Tyler and Kristin had meetings with them and determined that the shower facilities WERE part of the camping. Oh well. Friday was a day for sighting in, trying the guns that they had out, and socializing. The pistol comp had been cancelled due to incoming weather so it was a relaxing day. That night we ended up pretty much taking over Hog Heaven...AWESOME FOOD. I think we must have had 50 people eating there in total that night. We took up the whole back room and then some. While we were there the incoming weather hit hard with high winds and rain. As we left the rain had stopped and the worst of the weather was over. Our camper was mostly dry and intact. Because of the constant wind all day I suggested to Eric that we go out under cover of night and do a quick sight-in even though the range was technically closed :) So we took his truck out there and spent 5 minutes making sure we were straight as far as left-right was concerned. Saturday morning was an early one. Getting breakfast and out to the sight-in line which was wet and crowded. I shot 10 shots, making sure my elevation was where it should be and got out of the way. Went down to the registration area and waited for 8:30 to roll around then went to the pavilion and waited for the shooters meeting to start with Sydney. No surprises and we were all anxious to start. Sydney and I were squadded together as requested both days as we were sharing my equipment so it was a nice weekend with some quality father-daughter time. We shot with Rick, who was fairly new to the sport, and another fellow whose name escapes me. We had a good day. The wind was challenging and I had taken my time. If I had close ones I tried to hurry but not rush leaving more time for the long ones and allowing the wind to die down to then take the long shots, hopefully, with little to no wind. By the end of the course I thought for sure I was out of the running once again with a 43/52 (-9 shots). As I started making my way to put my stuff away I found out that the Himes brothers hadn't done very well with the wind. Dennis was looking at the wind in the grass but didn't take into account that the grass was extremely wet from the rain the night before so grossly underestimated the wind and was down -13 and Tom was down -15 I think. Talking to others I proceeded to figure out that I actually did very well. At one point John Eros came up to me and said "looks like we're tied for 1st...". I was completely surprised. I always figure that someone must have shot better than me, so I'm always very humble about my score and try not to get my hopes up. We all went to the banquet that night at the Elks Club, which is always top notch. PA has many things out to raffle off, plus they were raffling off a new Air Venturi Compressor! The number of people from the Northeast has grown so we took a picture of our group, which is in the pictures below and called it a night. Sunday came and I didn't even bother sighting in. I figured that I put the rifle away and nothing had changed or gotten bumped, similar to last year. So I spent the morning relaxing and talking with friends. Tyler got the meeting under way, but this time with some humor. Someone had really messed up their score sheet so Kristin pulled out a big "X" on paper and Tyler said "this is what you write down when the target is knocked over" <laugh from everyone>. Kristen pulls out an "O", "This is what you write down when the target is NOT knocked over".... Sydney and I were paired with John Eroh, who I was tied with for 1st and Jim Cylan, who was 1 point behind us. First lane and John's fingers were visibly shaking to the point that we all asked him if he was OK. He had never been in this position so was WAY nervous. We went on with our shooting and I missed two early on so I just started shooting for fun like I try to always do and enjoy my daughter's company. But as we worked our way through the course I ended up not missing as many as John and managed to tie Jim. So Jim remained 1 point behind me and John was 3 behind. So at this point, unless someone had a spectacular day, I had a chance. We packed up the equipment, went back to the camper and got everything ready to leave and had some lunch. Tyler and crew took the score boards into a private room since there were some protests to work out and to keep the scoring private. Maybe an hour later they put the score boards up and I had a "1st" next to my name! WOW, a dream had come true. Then Eric said that I had better look at the prizes to see which one I would like. And since you didn't know the order you needed to create a list of 1-5. I started getting congratulations from EVERYONE, even Tyler. It was one of those moments that is just surreal. Well, Kristen called the 1st place finishers out and had us draw numbers. High score went first, drew a 3. Next highest drew a 2. Then I went and drew 1! Wow, I won and get first choice of the prizes! Crazy. Tyler started the presentation and my name was announced as 1st Place in Hunter PCP. I made my way up to him with the room erupting in cheers. Just crazy. For this particular weekend I had managed to beat 49 other people over two days of shooting. I got a very nice 1st place Cup trophy and was able to pick out an Ataman M2S Field Target rifle worth $2399. You might recall that I had written earlier about having someone in line above you that you are close to beating as your next goal. And I had called out the Himes' brothers, to which they were very flattered. On the way home I just kept reliving the weekend and thinking any more mistakes and this wouldn't have happened. But I managed to keep my cool, enjoy the weekend, spend time with my daughter, shoot really well, AND I BEAT THE HIMES' BROTHERS! So I came to the conclusion that I had won the trifecta by beating both of the Himes' brothers AND winning the cup.
5 Comments
Our first 4-H Air Rifle Shooting Sports Class is starting Oct 1. The packets are below: "The packet must be completed before or on the first meeting night. Enrollment fee is $15 per youth. Checks payable to CCE-MC or cash. I will collect if they have them first night. If a family has limited resources we do offer fee waivers – all they have to do is provide a copy of the letter that they received from their school district stating that their child receives a free or reduced fee lunch at school – no other questions asked and it is kept confidential who receives fee waivers."
Next week is the Pyramyd Air Cup. As a match director I try to prepare people for comps by increasing the difficulty at our monthly matches. Not to a crazy level, but definitely more challenging than usual. Eric and I met on Friday night and proceeded with setting up the course for Saturday with a 38 troyer on the rifle and a 34 on the pistol. Saturday came and I arrived at 6:30 am to put paper in the sight-in targets. The wind at this point was as still as it would get, so I started sighting in my rifle and pistol. We had some new people attending that I wrote about a couple of months ago... Ashleigh and Spencer along with their parents Craig and Heidi. It was great to see them again and to hear that Spencer and Ashleigh were hounding their father to come to one of our matches was a great thing to hear. With Ashleigh, Spencer, and their father, Craig, shooting I got them paired with the people/equipment that they would be shooting with and they got to work putting holes in paper. We had a quick safety/shooter's meeting and we went to our starting lanes in the field. It's tough to shoot well and help someone, especially a younger shooter, but it's a necessary requirement if you want to bring in new people to the sport. The wind on Saturday also proved to be light and variable...enough that scores were considerably lower than normal but everyone had smiles on their faces and we were all having a great time spending the day outside shooting. Ashleigh and Spencer are very competitive and so the entire time they were comparing scores. In the end Ashleigh was able to pull out another win over her brother. After cleaning up the rifle targets and switching things over to pistol we ended up with 6 people using two pistols... Eric and I were the only two with pistols and we ended up forcing/coercing/begging people to stay around and shoot. Again, Ashleigh and Spencer were immediately comparing scores however this time it was Spencer who got the win in the last couple lanes. Rifle JUNIOR Ashleigh 93/120 (FIRST TIME) Spencer 80/120 (FIRST TIME) HUNTER PCP Dennis Himes 50 Ken Burley 46 Shawn Pragle 44 Rick Vaeth 44 Sean McDaniel 44 Daryl VanWhy 42 Doug Rogers 39 Sue Burley 31 WFT PCP Glen Thomas 42 OPEN PISTON Craig Rosen 7 (FIRST TIME) Tony Garland 6 HUNTER PISTON Greg Shirhall 48 Paul Manktelow 31 Eric Brewer 29 PISTOL JUNIOR Spencer 56/80 Ashleigh 53/80 HUNTER Eric Brewer 27 Sean McDaniel 23 Craig Rosen 20 Doug Rogers 10 Friday started out at 1 pm with a quick lunch at the Wyomoco 4H Mess Hall and then out to the field to set up for the weekend. The constant wind atop the hill made it feel colder than it actually was. I wasn't sure what to expect, but had brought my air rifle/pistol with me in addition to the 4 Challengers that we had just gotten the week prior. Scopes were mounted and they were ready for sight-in. I took care of the rifle setup as soon as the course was done. I certainly didn't expect what came next.... exhaustion :) One young lady, Holly, stopped by on Friday to check things out in her spare time, and I think a couple of others came through on Friday. Not too bad. Then Saturday came about and everything changed. There were times when I had 5 kids/adults shooting at one time (3 challengers, my rifle, and my pistol). Everyone had a smile. I believe that every 4H participant, except 2, came through at one time or another. At 3 pm Eric Brewer called to let me know he was on his way and asked how I was doing.... I was exhausted both mentally and physically (but in a great way). It's a wonderful thing to have young kids asking to try this sport they've never heard of and to then hear things like "this is awesome!" was the icing on the cake. But it meant that I had to work individually to get each person set up and shooting, and then keep an eye on the line for any problems and for safety while getting the next person set up. Safety wasn't an issue as they had all shot guns of one type or another so they all knew the MAT (Muzzle, Action, Trigger) acronym and followed it well. Eric Brewer showed up at 6 pm just as two kids were laying down their rifles. And before I could say hello I then had a family of 4 show up, so I started getting each one going. But that was the way Saturday went. Just when you thought there was some time to rest or shoot, up the hill came some more kids to try it out...which is a great problem to have! Sunday was more of the same, but at least I had Eric around to help. We again had kids coming through on a regular basis and even the adults were trying it out and loving it. We also had Mora and Keith, who are higher ups in the 4H hierarchy, along with John who I first met at our training in Balson Spa. John tried it out (even tried Eric's spring piston rifle), but Mora and Keith were on their way to start tearing down the 3D course. It was great to talk with them further about our sport and have the interest coming from the 4H side. Mo really wanted to stay and talk but Keith kept reminding her that they were on a schedule. The final awards were handed out and we thanked everyone for allowing us to come out and share our great sport with them. Nate, the organizer, then announced that field target will be included next year as one of the competition categories! What a GREAT SURPRISE!!! Special moments... One kid, Kearnan (spelling?), absolutely loved shooting the targets. On Saturday he was there for 2 2-hour sessions constantly shooting my rifle. The smile on his face never disappeared. However, he is a bit of a rascal as he was keeping an eye out for new shooters. They would shoot a close one or two and then they try for longer and longer ones. At this point he would snipe their target with a "WHO SHOT MY TARGET" followed by a long snicker by Kearnan. He was having a blast. Max, who was the youngest, came in and was shivering. So I took off my jacket and had him put it on figuring that if he's shaking he can't possibly shoot well. Got him set up and he was having a great time shooting the two close ones. Then he wanted to try the long one at 40 yards but he wasn't hitting steel. So I tried it with the rifle he had and found out the hold-over I had was wrong. Trying myself I realized it was shooting 8 mil-dots down. So I say that he needed to hold 3 mil-dots from the bottom for that one. I think he nailed it with the very next shot! And then there was a mother who came to me on Saturday and said she would love to give it a try but she hadn't shot before. Absolutely, come on over tomorrow....Really? Yup. So she brought her family over and they shot. When a rifle opened up I walked over and asked "You ready"...Really?!...Yup, come on over. Again, I got her set up and as she's knocking down the targets she's looking at her family saying "Did you guys see that!?" Eric (a 4H participant) had been by several times over the weekend and had been using my rifle to shoot with. The butt pad came loose, so I went to tighten it up, but in the meantime Eric Brewer pulled out his piston rifle and Eric tried that. He was knocking down targets near and far the first try. Really impressed Eric Brewer and he really enjoyed shooting piston (which is strange :) and might be coming to our next match. In my previous post I shared some of the frustrations behind the scenes, but then something like "this" happens which makes it ALL worth the time and frustration. THESE are the moments that will always stand out in my mind.
I just got a call from Craig in Syracuse. He didn't even have to tell me who he was as I distinctly remembered him and his two kids, Ashleigh and Spencer, from the Baldwinsville shoot in July. He explained that Ashleigh and Spencer had been hounding him to get to our field target matches ever since Baldwinsville -- MADE MY DAY! He wanted to know more about the matches, how they worked, and when the next match notification would come out so he could plan. So we had a quick conversation about equipment and getting all three of them shooting next weekend, letting me know that all three of them would be there. So, it seems that getting any new venture off the ground ALWAYS has it's ups and downs. Just when you think things are going great a curve ball seems to be the next pitch. Such is the case the last couple of weeks with trying to get the 4-H shooting program off the ground.
Suddenly I realized that October 1st is coming up quickly, so I contacted the rifle club to continue where we left off...NRA Membership, rifle club membership, 4-H schedule. Seems straight forward to me. No, there is also a rifle club orientation (90 minutes held once a month) that was in 3 days and I wasn't a "Member" yet (read $$ hadn't been paid) and the next one in September was over the Pyramyd Cup weekend, so it had to be the one coming up. Great, I get approval to go after explaining what is going on. I thought I was just going to the orientation and would pay the dues once I got my NRA membership established. Nope, I got there and luckily I had an old tattered check, for emergencies, in my wallet so I pulled that out. Application form? nope, it's at home... so I filled that out. Now, the NRA membership I had signed up for just happened to be during the week that they were cutting over to a new system....my luck. So I paid on Wednesday and was told it would be at least a WEEK before anyone saw my membership renewal. Strange that the NRA is that far behind in the times. It would seem to me that as soon as I click the submit button that their entire organization would know about me, but that wasn't the case. So three days after the orientation (a week after I signed up) I finally got someone who could provide my proof of membership. Great, smooth sailing ahead... nope. I try following up with the guy in charge of the activities letting him know everything was set and we just needed to settle on a schedule. Oct 1 through November 19 from 6-9 pm right? Nothing. Try again in a couple of days. Still nothing. Finally get a response and he wants to start Sept 29 and it's only 6-7:30 pm. In my head i'm SCREEMING WTF! However, I had to keep it cool if I wanted anything positive to come out of this. So I politely explained that there was another email with the 6-9 pm slot that I had requested because he said it was open. I also explained that our fiscal year starts October 1 so we couldn't do anything before that date. He was responsive, this time, and understood where the mix-up occurred and we are now waiting for final approval with a couple of board meetings that we'll have to work around (something I also wasn't made aware of earlier). To answer your question, "Yes, I've considered several times to just drop it". That would be the easy thing to do, but I've come to realize that the things that make us want to throw our hands up and quit are also the things, that if you dig deep, will challenge you to become a better person. And in the end if I someone involved in shooting airguns and see that they have a smile on their face while doing so then I will consider the frustration more than worth it, and if I grow a little in the process I guess that's a good thing. |