Children and Guns

Children and Guns: The Hidden Toll

An article in the September 28, 2013, NY Times.

. . . . .

When I was eleven, I spent the summer on my uncle’s farm. My cousin, Bob, was one year older than I.

One Tuesday afternoon in late June, my uncle and aunt had gone into town to shop. Bob and I finished cleaning the milk house and went up to the house for a drink of K0ol-Aid.

My aunt’s sister was moving and has stored some of her furniture is a room just off the dining room. Bob went into the room and began looking through dresser drawers. A little later he called to me, “Come in here.”

When I walked into the room, Bob was pointing a revolver at me. “Stick ’em up.”

Startled, I tried to move to my left. Bob laughed and the noise from the “unloaded” .22 pistol sounded like a cannon in the small room. The bullet went past my right side, in and out of a mattress and made a dent in the plaster wall.

After the initial shock, we replaced the empty casing with a fresh cartridge, placed the gun in the draw where Bob had found it, tried to make the little holes in the mattress littler, turned the mattress so that the hole were hidden by a dresser, picked out the dented wallpaper, and aired out the room.

When my uncle and aunt returned, they were pleased to find us in the barn spreading feed for the afternoon milking.

That was one episode we never talked about.