This was sent to me by a good friend and Ruger collector. He's having trouble registering on to the forum and will send me info so I can maybe get some help from Admin. I asked and he said yes to posting it. Enjoy and see if it brings back any memories:
Over 40 years ago I was between voyages and my buddy Mike had just gotten out of the Army after 2 years in Germany. We had been tight friends since 1st grade and always enjoyed doing things together. His grandparents owned a fruit farm and always had problems with pigeons in their barns. Mike and I bought a brick of Federal Lightning .22 Long Rifles and started getting rid of as many pigeons as we could shoot. The one barn had a broken window at the very top of the loft where the pigeons would fly in and out.... Mike had a single shot Marlin with cocking knob, and I had Stevens in the same configuration. We would throw about 10 or 12 rounds in our mouths and spit them into our hands to speed up our firing rate. (not a good thing with the lead projectiles but we were young and invincible).... We both saw a pigeon fly out of the window at the same time and fired....
That is when all Hell broke loose in a chain reaction that would be a pure cinematic treasure!!! The pigeon we hit dropped right into his grandma's 1964 Pontiac Bonneville Convertible as she was backing out of the driveway with the top down... She was a little woman who barely peered above the steering wheel and wore a huge hat with flowers on it... The pigeon bounced off her hat and into her lap... She floored it and the 421 V8 responded with all 376 horsepower!!! She backed through her produce stand at about 40mph totally destroying the stand along with the various berries she had for sale. It scattered berries and boxes for a couple hundred feet before she came to rest in a ditch... We came running out of the barn when we heard the commotion to see the tail end of her wild ride as she flattened the stand. She saw us with our rifles and I believe if she had been able to get the car out of the ditch she would have run us over!! She started screaming at us in combinations of words I had never heard before or since! She cussed us so bad we started laughing... We got one of their tractors and pulled the Pontiac out of the ditch and cleaned up as much of the wrecked stand as we could. My dad ran a sawmill so I got the lumber to repair her stand and even make it better. Mike and I both rebuilt it for her and reimbursed her for the destroyed fruit. If I close my eyes I can still see it happening in slow motion.
Over 40 years ago I was between voyages and my buddy Mike had just gotten out of the Army after 2 years in Germany. We had been tight friends since 1st grade and always enjoyed doing things together. His grandparents owned a fruit farm and always had problems with pigeons in their barns. Mike and I bought a brick of Federal Lightning .22 Long Rifles and started getting rid of as many pigeons as we could shoot. The one barn had a broken window at the very top of the loft where the pigeons would fly in and out.... Mike had a single shot Marlin with cocking knob, and I had Stevens in the same configuration. We would throw about 10 or 12 rounds in our mouths and spit them into our hands to speed up our firing rate. (not a good thing with the lead projectiles but we were young and invincible).... We both saw a pigeon fly out of the window at the same time and fired....
That is when all Hell broke loose in a chain reaction that would be a pure cinematic treasure!!! The pigeon we hit dropped right into his grandma's 1964 Pontiac Bonneville Convertible as she was backing out of the driveway with the top down... She was a little woman who barely peered above the steering wheel and wore a huge hat with flowers on it... The pigeon bounced off her hat and into her lap... She floored it and the 421 V8 responded with all 376 horsepower!!! She backed through her produce stand at about 40mph totally destroying the stand along with the various berries she had for sale. It scattered berries and boxes for a couple hundred feet before she came to rest in a ditch... We came running out of the barn when we heard the commotion to see the tail end of her wild ride as she flattened the stand. She saw us with our rifles and I believe if she had been able to get the car out of the ditch she would have run us over!! She started screaming at us in combinations of words I had never heard before or since! She cussed us so bad we started laughing... We got one of their tractors and pulled the Pontiac out of the ditch and cleaned up as much of the wrecked stand as we could. My dad ran a sawmill so I got the lumber to repair her stand and even make it better. Mike and I both rebuilt it for her and reimbursed her for the destroyed fruit. If I close my eyes I can still see it happening in slow motion.
