Back Trail | Max Vickery, February 1986 | Muzzle Blasts Archives

This article was originally published in the February 1986 Issue of Muzzle Blasts Magazine. Max Vickery’s writing is some of our memberships’ all-time favorite, we thought it appropriate to share during the COVID-19 situation.

If it  wasn't for  memories I don't know just how I'd  get through Feb­ ruary. It's a cold,  dead month  for me with the seasons gone and 30 to 45 days of waiting until you can get the van in on a local range without getting stuck. All guns have been cleaned, some of  them twice, you've run the corn and   feed out    to    three   different snow-drifted,  squirrel woods, and are  happy with the snowshoes you got for Christmas.

But those details  have been used up and  so, you sit and remember some of  the happy times at Friend­ ship. How  far back do you go? - Oh, could go to the Fall of '49, but you just sorta' let it drift and relive the event  and not worry so much about when it happened. Moris  Van Way  and his bunch camped   in the first tipi I   ever saw, big old thing, had  a lot  of miles on it, and in it a lot of stories were  told. And like every other greenhorn    that came byand stopped, I asked him what this ar­ rowhead  lookin' thing was on the chain    and   ring,   and was   told, "that's  a deer-check."  And like every other   greenhorn    that   got caught   up in it,   I then asked, "what's a deer-check?" There may bea couple of clusters of guys talk­ ing around the camp, but when old Van   started the buildup on    his story, they all stopped  and waited until he dropped it on the beginner. Those   things come in   different sizes,  and about ten years  later I watched a young lad get his with a "Rabbit Check.'' Ralph  and Mandy Dunn always setup to shoot on station  #1 on the 50 yd. line with an old, pale green, painted  bench the same color as his house in Fort Wayne. He had a horrible lookin'  bench gun, shot good though and he won some pretty im­ portant matches back then . Herman   Fox was Van's right­ hand man and the two of them along with Trotter and a few others kept  the grass mowed and the little stone john and the pump-house working. Foxy was a good ole boy, drove a Terraplane pickup, cut  fire­ wood for everyone, pulled traps back when you pushed a big lever forward to cock it, and pulled it to just a mite to trip the bird, and  the puller stood back with the shooters. Walt Muething was active then, shot    an old original    flintlock. Vaughn's family was   all young, camped with him, and Helen moth­ ered the whole bunch. Don Schuer­ man  and his family was always there, and I suppose he always will be. God he shot good, and still can on occasion.

Don  Coble,  out of Hellersburg, Penn.  shot the rest matches from prone and shot his offhand from the X-ring  out, but not very far out. They camped in a little, green, tent where  the water faucet is now on the stone john. His wife would sit there all  day on a camp stooland read - quiet little lady. Doc and Sue Hirtle shot excellent bench  back then. She wore a red, floppy brimmed hat and one time up in Pennsylvania an  old dutch lady thought Sue had put a hex on her with it and jerked it off her head and cut it up with a patch-knife. The Hirtles had a monthly column in the "Blasts" for a long time.

Claude and Bertie Tuner, daughter and son-in-law shot good bench. The   mother-daughter side of the family was sure something to stand next to when you were working your 50  yd. offhand. The men did the loading and the two women would sit there and talk about a dress pat­ tern, pass along a  new cake recipe, snuggle down into the guns, and print a couple of X's, while you were trying your damndest not  to "rabbit-ear" and get five in the black on your Simon Kenton .I remember once the ladies 50 yd. bench went with three 50's and dim­ inishing  X's from three to one. A Mrs. Freeze was 1st., Bertie came in 2nd. and Mrs. Weichold, whose husband made the fine bench bar­ rels, one turn in 48,  48-inches long in the same caliber, came in 3rd. Earl Black, Merrill Deer, Joe Ev­ ans, Bill Reece and I had the off­ hand for a while. Earl died, the other three got  busy with the asso­ ciation and I got better. And then along came Jim Henderson,    Al Leaf,  Danny Schlegal  and a long, tall, lanky kid named

Cooley, and I started my downhill slide. Jim and Dorothy Coon have been oldtimers for  many years now and their gatherings at campside are part of our history, really. Charlotte,  of Red and Charlotte Roberts is still with us fixin' cut fingers and burns with our nurse, Liz. Met  AJ Hill, past President type person, one night in the rain in the patch of low ground across the road  from  Jim and  Dots. I helped  him, by sticking the spike  on his center pole out through   the  roof of  his tent. It leaked slightly at  that point, but not near as bad as  the flow of water coming in through the bottom of   his door-flap in the morning. That's before we laid the 1,743 feet of field tile. He has another way of remembering  me as he has a Levi, blanket lined rancher's coat full of "Choyia" (spelled wrong probably) cactus needles that says, "This coat belongs  to Al Hill, take it off, and make Vickery wear it.'' You see, I'll remember some things and you will remember  oth­ ers. The people of Commercial Row are still missing Ted Cole, perhaps not all of them, but those who didn't need sleep always had fun in his booth. Those who camp  up at the Skeet and Quail-Walk have memories from around their fires, late night talks in the old Pistol Shack, Trap House, or a guy with one wet leg up to his knee and the  other dry when he stepped through the cooler. Or don't ever set up your tent one stake short and tie the line to the bumper on your car and then head for town, and not untie the line. And  it's best not to press your clean khaki under a tent-mates sleep­ ing bag if he don't get up at night and go outside when he has to.

You may have noticed that I have tactfully left out some of the names to  protect the guilty.  

But these are memories,  fun times, and a thousand laughs. And  boy, in February, you'd

better be able to laugh a little, 'cause  it's tough inside and out around here.

See  ya in   March if   I make it through this one.

Max Vickery

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