The first dulcimer player to ever make her way to my Trax on Wax open mic – Lindsey from the Baltimore Songwriter’s Association performing a couple of tunes at ToW in Catonsville, MD.
Sharif took me shooting Thursday night. He’s been bugging me for a while, and frankly I’ve been curious. Last New Year’s Eve I had him take me through the basics of how to load and unload, safety and unsafety his .45, but I’ve never fired a handgun. I’ve been around guns before, it’s never been in a very positive environment and Sharif has been wanting to make sure I was prepped in the case of a zombie apocalypse. He felt it was important to know whether I’d be able to do battle upstairs or if I’d be stuck in the basement reloading with Joanna. As a more practical item, for all that the movies show handguns as being something that anyone can just point and shoot, I was horribly aware that if someone tossed me a pistol and said “shoot anything that comes through that door!” I’d probably pull the trigger and nothing would happen.
Teporah Bilezikian performing on the piano at Te Amo. Yes, there is a piano at Te Amo.
It was an interesting experience. He took me through general safety and some good habits to develop before we went to a small shooting range in a small strip mall. We talked about safety glasses and he told me that probably the most unnerving thing would be the noise – even with ear plugs in, most people get really nerve-wracked by the constant sound of gunfire. We were both kind of surprised that that was not really a problem for me. The only exception was when someone opened up with something that was a considerably larger caliber than anything else being used on the range and fired off about 15 rounds in quick succession. Of course, that caused EVERYONE to stop what they were doing and lean over to see what was going on – Robocop style.
I was pleased that no-one seemed particularly nutty. Everyone was friendly and polite – and the only semblance of “gun nuttism” was people being enthusiastic about a guy’s 30 year-old revolver that had an interesting history. The smell of the bullets was sharp but unmemorable, and it was strange to get shells caught in the tread of my boot. Trailing spent shells into the pho restaurant we went to for dinner was kind of embarrassing.
As it was, and with Sharif’s guidance, I still managed to cut myself badly, get my finger caught in the ejection port, and burn my thumb with ejected shells. That being said, I showed an immediate ability to consistently get headshots, which is good, because loading magazines hurts my thumb. It was good bonding and it was interesting to be on the other side of the muzzle. Years ago I had a real hatred for guns. Nowadays they are just… around. I don’t think I’ll ever own one (unless of course there IS a zombie apocalypse) but it was good to have some of the mystique dismantled.
