First off, I'm not sure what "halcyon days" means. To me it sounds like a description of warm, heady days long gone--but I could be wrong.
In the beginning:
I joined a gun club in 1996 because I wanted to shoot my 30-30. I bought the thing in the fall of 1984 to shoot a deer, and then stuck it in a closet for fifteen years, only dusting it off when I discovered "The Club" online--dial up that is. And while I was there, shooting my rifle, Mike asked me casually if I owned a shotgun. Well, as luck would have it, I had bought one of those back in 1984 as well, for shooting (at) dove.
That shotgun, that Winchester 120 "Ranger", was the first gun I had ever bought and I mean bought as soon as I was old enough to do so from Best Products on High Point Rd. It was the first gun I had ever hunted with, but it too had found a home behind stands of clothes before Mike asked.
The next weekend I threw it in the truck and before I knew it, I was standing on the semi-circled Skeet field with four other guys I barely knew. I think I busted about 18 clays that first time with my trusty pump gun, but I was hooked. And that first encounter started an addiction to shotgun sports that I still manage and enjoy to this day.
Now in those early days, there was just one "problem" at "The Rock". There was only one skeet field. One field for about 25 of us regular shooters. With only five shooters on a regular squad, there were many times when most of us were waiting to shoot.
Well, it was hot in the summer, so we built a shelter for shade. It was crowded and standing room only so we built picnic tables to sit on. And someone would cook, and we all would chat and visit and eat! Food would be brought in, and drinks, and cakes and then more laughing and more shooting. Some fast friendships were made under that shelter waiting to shoot.
What made the time so enjoyable and special was that, here, at The Rock, the CEO of Aero-Atlantic was hanging out with a Dumbass Carpenter. The VP for Lorillard Tobacco Co. was there hanging out with Mike the "Elevator Man". Sawmill workers rubbed elbows with double-degree'd engineers. Car mechanics huddled over grills with school teachers--it was such a mix of folks that ordinarily would never hang out together.
A guy like me shooting with his $165 Winchester pump-o-matic could be found whipping some guy with a $10,000 Kreighoff or Kolar shotgun. (It might've happened that way--that's the way I remember it anyway! Lunch Round anyone?) The filthy '97 Ford F-250 I drove could be parked beside a Mercedes in the gravel lot on any given Sunday.
The tales, lies, and other stories that came out under that shelter prompted the co-opting of the saying, "What comes out at The Rock, stays at The Rock." It was a good time to be learning the fine art of shooting skeet surrounded by men, though precious few women, that could make you laugh your ass off...
And then it started. "Why do we have to sit around an wait to shoot when the Trap Shooters have four fields to shoot on?"
A plan was hatched. A handful of us asked the board if it were possible to have more fields installed--but were told to go away. So...a handful of us joined the board and worked the inside. And then this hodgepodge group of buddies, united in a love of waiting-free skeet shooting, overcame every obstacle that the old guard, and county government, threw in our way. And soon enough...our work done, we dropped off the board having acheived our goals.
This whole process took years, but we got three fields, and we got our no waiting! And that's when a curious thing happened. Suddenly, the shabby trucks were staying with the shabby trucks in the new lot. The shiny Kreighoffs were clustering with the shiny Kreighoff K-80's and Kolars and Beretta Double E and L's...The normal, socioeconomic cliques were weaseling their way onto our fields for the first time.
The cooking had stopped long before, and now that old shelter was "miles" up the hill from the new fields, gone was the hub where we'd all eaten, cajoled, shared tactics for conquering fragile little clay discs, and solved the world's problems. Gone too were the good times when people would mingle and laugh when they weren't shooting, and all it took was getting what we wanted.
I kinda saw it coming, and kinda predicted it while soaking in some Mexican food and beer before a board meeting long before the first spadeful of dirt was ever overturned, but no one ever listens to me.
It's an allegory!
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