It was a great Christmas. I received what every sixth grade boy in Texas desires - a BB gun. (The movie A Christmas Story is factual.) To load the gun, the end of the barrel had to be twisted to reveal an opening where the BB's could be poured. Oh, what a sweet sound the BB's made racing down the barrel.
I was returning from on one of my big game hunts, thinking I was out of ammo. I turned the gun up and down, trying to hear the presence of any BB's. No sound. For sure, I was out of ammo. However, about a block from home I cocked the gun, pointed it toward a dove's nest and pulled the trigger. To my surprise a BB was ejected. right into the nest. A nanosecond later a dove fell out of the nest and started flopping on the ground. Oops!!! I picked up the dove and noticed its left eyeball was hanging outside the socket. A wave of guilt and remorse flooded my heart. "What have I done," I thought. Carefully, I picked up the dove and for several days nursed it. When I felt it was stronger, I carried the dove to the roof of our garage and threw the one-eyed dove into the air. It could fly!!! Oh, I felt so good about the medical attention I had administerd, that is until it flew over the neigbor's property and hit a sixty foot tall tree in their yard. I'm not sure what happened to the dove; I suppressed the desire to know. My career as a big game hunter ended abruptly! From that day forward it would only be target practice for me.
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