Back Trail

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

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.

Back Trail | Max Vickery, March 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.

I  sometimes  wonder where  the core, the nucleus of this Association lays. In 37 years of watching I know it  hasn't been some of  us. I also know that some, the living cement, that help make our common  bond, go unnoticed. A president comes from the rank of board-member  hopefully with credits of good ideas he has put forth before the  body of fellow   members.  He is looked  at, weighed, and  29 others, either for or against, say, "Yes, we"ll trust him with thechair."

This man is then honored and has to   perform. He may answer the same question  four times in an af­ ternoon, his shooting goes  down­ hill, his time is not his own, for heis no longer himself, he is "ours." To the four of us who ask, our question is  primary. The president may not consider our questions high in the order of priorities, but he leaves his hurried lunch to give us the answer. Yet,  I don't think this man,  who ever he may be, is the blood-core of this Association. The  Board of Directors is  certainly an honored position.   And having watched it through nine administrations,  I have seen it filled with the most worthy and a few, a very few, who just came aboard . If,  first we shoot , then we camp, and then we Commercial Row, and by God, in that order. Then, a  safety­ minded, attentive range officer must be considered as a "donor" to the ef­forts of this Association.  Whoever thought up our "Range Officers School" so our overworked officers could be relieved by properly trained and  competent people is certainly to becommended.Having  always felt  that there are but four basics to a rifle match; targets sold,  targets  scored,  a range officer, and a restroom. Anything beyond this is a  fringe benefit, be it  dining  hall, drinking  water, or electric  hook up. This then brings the target desk clerks, the scoring room personnel, and  cap­ tains of the head to a more  appre­ ciated postition. We have come a  long, long way from those four basics in  the years of our being. Look at   your  maga­ zine, the office, maternally watched over for  years by our Dorm-Mother assisted by a nearly adopted daugh­ ter,  now manager, surrounded by caring sisters. I  don't  think the  you and I who hunt alone with the guns that need a ramrod  are the  blood-core  until we help another whose interest is the same as ours. I think you haveto helpsome­ one before you can enter the flow that feeds the lifeline of this Association. It is  not the champions who take the medals and not their turn at the duty. It was not the non-contributing critics that made this Association the greatest of its kind. It  was the "givers" and God bless you all. Look if you will at  a national spi­ der web of  muzzleloading. Look at pages 61-62 of your January  Blasts and  see how far the baselines of  the web now run. Know also, that these "little-shoots" are run by a handful of people who baked a ham at  home and brought it for the kitchen, made two  candle-lanterns and  gave them as prizes,  came out yesterday and mowed    the grass, and after we shooters  leave, will clean up the grounds and  lock the farmer's gate so we can meet a month from now.

The quiet people, the blood-core, the giving members, from far out  on the edge of the web, they who spill their pint that flows into  the base­ line troughs going to the center of this Association, those who work so others can shoot - the "givers.''

You who give are truly wonderful - you  have made us what we are to­day!

Max Vickery

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