Wasn’t Even A Quick Draw

The Day Mama Shot the Hell Out of Papa’s Knife

How do you shoot a knife?

Author’s Idea done up by AI

(I wrote this story a while back, but I do things differently now. So here it is, completely retold.)

Papa didn’t shoot anything that breathed anymore. He liked to do things his own way.

One day, on one of our trips to the woods, I asked him if he knew how to start a fire without matches.

“Sure,” he said.

Then he pulled out his Zippo and struck a flame.

I laughed.

“No, Papa. Without matches or a lighter.”

“Of course I know how,” he said. “It’s just easier this way.”

That was Papa.

He liked knowing how things were done. He liked doing them himself. And even when there was an easier way, he preferred his own.

Most Saturdays, he carried a paper target into the woods, pinned it to a tree or fence post, and practiced with his six-shooter. He wasn’t interested in hunting anymore. He had done enough of that years earlier. What interested him now was accuracy.

One day, I wasn’t available to go with him, so he talked Mama into coming along.

Mama hated loud noises. She didn’t care for guns. She had no interest in target shooting whatsoever. But she loved Papa, and sometimes that meant participating in activities she would never have chosen on her own.

Out in the pasture, Papa discovered he had forgotten to bring a nail to hold up the target.

Being Papa, he improvised.

He opened his pocketknife and stuck the blade into the fence post, pinning the paper target in place.

Then he handed the revolver to Mama.

Mama took aim.

One shot.

The target fluttered to the ground.

So did the knife.

Mama had shot Papa’s pocketknife clean to pieces.

For years afterward, the story was told and retold in our family. One detail always received special emphasis.

Mama didn’t like guns.

That didn’t mean she couldn’t shoot.

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I don’t know if he even wanted that huge fossil grinder, but he bought it and made me carry it to the Buick.

Emotional healing begins the moment you stop rehearsing speeches for arguments that ended three years ago.

Image taken by myself

Sam D. Parker is a retired drug rehab counselor communicating the value of increased awareness of addiction, planting, nourishing, and cultivating ideas, images, and emotions about the effect of addictive conditions on the human mind. He is a member of the Baha’i Faith.

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