This is the first in a continuing series about my weird career in journalism.
Evidence of my pistol shooting prowess Fri, Mar 2, 1979 – Page 25 · The Ottawa Journal (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) · Newspapers.com
When I was a little kid on the farm, my granddad taught me to shoot.He didn't take me hunting for turkeys, or vermin. If he had, I wouldn't have touched the pellet gun. I am a life-long animal lover who would often cry when I saw roadkill. So hunting animals was definitely off the table.Grandpa Loyal set up a shooting range in the basement of the farmhouse where he let me practise shooting cards off a makeshift cork board. I had some difficulty -- hey, I was six! -- so he would prop the rifle on top of a chair back, to stabilize the weapon. I absolutely loved the time we spent together. Grandpa Loyal was kind, and smart, and world weary, and he still had so much patience with me. Even now, I feel warm and fuzzy when thinking about the bond we shared. Fast forward 15 years to my early years working nightside cops at the Ottawa Journal. Being a cop reporter was ideal for me. Spending hours chasing after fires, and robberies and murders beat the hell out of snoring through boring school board or city planning meetings. Besides, I loved to dish dirt with Inspector Charboneau who have more than a few stories about city councillors who had to be bailed out of the drunk tank, and MPs and embassy staffers who found themselves involved in a prostitution ring that we never reported. Those were gentler times. We didn't report those kind of stories back in the 70s. Anyway, we had a great relationship with the cops, who were friendly and helpful, and not afraid that we would take them down.Which is why I found myself in the basement of the Nepean Police Centre one night shooting pistols with sergeants, and members of the media. The Ottawa Citizen sponsored a media pistol shooting competition, and I volunteered to put my skills to the test. It is true, I had never shot a firearm other than the ancient pellet gun, but I wasn't afraid of them, and nobody else wanted the job, so that's how I ended up shooting a .38 police revolver with the blessing of law enforcement.It was pretty easy. To me, the .38 was like a toy gun compared to the clunky rifle from my youth. There was almost no kick to it.I'll let the Citizen's Geoff Johnson tell the story about what happened next. "The showstopper was the winning team's Rose Simpson, who unlike her partner, Dave McKay, had no experience with a .38 service revolver. Relaxed, and balanced on her bare feet, she notched a remarkable 328, the fourth best individual performance. (For comparison, the lowest individual score among the nine teams was 80.On the fourth round with the target its farthest distance, Rose was forced to abandon her glasses to focus properly. She scored 86, topping the well practised McKay by 13 points. And so I got my picture in the paper, like a little kid, and had my name engraved on a trophy which may sit somewhere, gathering dust, in the police basement in Nepean.Grandpa would have been proud. And for years, I had bragging rights.Don't mess with Simpson.She might be packing.
Evidence of my pistol shooting prowess Fri, Mar 2, 1979 – Page 25 · The Ottawa Journal (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) · Newspapers.comWhen I was a little kid on the farm, my granddad taught me to shoot.He didn't take me hunting for turkeys, or vermin. If he had, I wouldn't have touched the pellet gun. I am a life-long animal lover who would often cry when I saw roadkill. So hunting animals was definitely off the table.Grandpa Loyal set up a shooting range in the basement of the farmhouse where he let me practise shooting cards off a makeshift cork board. I had some difficulty -- hey, I was six! -- so he would prop the rifle on top of a chair back, to stabilize the weapon. I absolutely loved the time we spent together. Grandpa Loyal was kind, and smart, and world weary, and he still had so much patience with me. Even now, I feel warm and fuzzy when thinking about the bond we shared. Fast forward 15 years to my early years working nightside cops at the Ottawa Journal. Being a cop reporter was ideal for me. Spending hours chasing after fires, and robberies and murders beat the hell out of snoring through boring school board or city planning meetings. Besides, I loved to dish dirt with Inspector Charboneau who have more than a few stories about city councillors who had to be bailed out of the drunk tank, and MPs and embassy staffers who found themselves involved in a prostitution ring that we never reported. Those were gentler times. We didn't report those kind of stories back in the 70s. Anyway, we had a great relationship with the cops, who were friendly and helpful, and not afraid that we would take them down.Which is why I found myself in the basement of the Nepean Police Centre one night shooting pistols with sergeants, and members of the media. The Ottawa Citizen sponsored a media pistol shooting competition, and I volunteered to put my skills to the test. It is true, I had never shot a firearm other than the ancient pellet gun, but I wasn't afraid of them, and nobody else wanted the job, so that's how I ended up shooting a .38 police revolver with the blessing of law enforcement.It was pretty easy. To me, the .38 was like a toy gun compared to the clunky rifle from my youth. There was almost no kick to it.I'll let the Citizen's Geoff Johnson tell the story about what happened next. "The showstopper was the winning team's Rose Simpson, who unlike her partner, Dave McKay, had no experience with a .38 service revolver. Relaxed, and balanced on her bare feet, she notched a remarkable 328, the fourth best individual performance. (For comparison, the lowest individual score among the nine teams was 80.On the fourth round with the target its farthest distance, Rose was forced to abandon her glasses to focus properly. She scored 86, topping the well practised McKay by 13 points. And so I got my picture in the paper, like a little kid, and had my name engraved on a trophy which may sit somewhere, gathering dust, in the police basement in Nepean.Grandpa would have been proud. And for years, I had bragging rights.Don't mess with Simpson.She might be packing.
Comments
Post a Comment