Count Sandor, SASS #74075

When I started in '07 there were three clubs where we shot. Home club did 6 stages every month - More bang for the entry fee as OLG said. 2nd club shot 5-stage matches twice per month, 3rd club a 5-stage match once per month. When I asked, 2nd and 3rd clubs said they used 5 stages because that way 10-10-4 stages equaled out to exactly two 50-round boxes of hard rounds and one box of shotgun shells, allowing for SG makeups. Wasn't sure if they were pulling my leg or not, but the math made sense. CS

In Rock Island, IL, Elementary was K-6, Junior High 7-9, High School 10-12. We entered "Rocky High" as Sophomores. This was in the 40's, 50's 60's and most of the 70's. The surrounding cities in both Illinois and Iowa were all the same. In 1977, a "reformer" type superintendent closed the four junior highs, then reopened two of them as 7-8 buildings called junior highs, and two of them as 9th Grade only - designated as "Rocky East" and "Rocky West." Two years later the 9th Graders were integrated into the high school as "freshmen." The reformer superintendent didn't last long enough to see it... CS

I don't know if anyone ever posted a video of it, but before the passing of the range owner, the Shady Creek Shootists of Little York, IL had an annual shoot they called "True Grit Junior." This one required 4 revolvers, two rifles, and one shotgun. Unlike the scenario posted by H. K., all rounds for a stage were fired in the same bay. About half the time the same targets were used for the double revolver/rifle sequences. Sometimes there were enough targets for two completely different sequences. Sometimes the stage was shot as 20/20/8. Other times 10/10/4 then 10/10/4 - it all depended on what the MD, Dapper Dan Porter decided to do. To expedite things, a posse was divided into "A" and "B" squads. One squad worked as spotters, brass pickers, and as gun bearers for the extra revolvers and rifle. Some of the folks who were really into the game wore 4 holsters, but there still was a need for someone to carry a long gun. Dan's rules discouraged the shooter from moving back and forth between the loading table and stage front to retrieve extra guns. Adding here, as I recall this was a 5-bay shoot, the equivalent of 10 stages. CS

Pale Rider (must be duelist or double duelist) and Pale Rider Gunfighter Generally, 40 Cal and above, 200 grain and above bullet, 30 grains and above of black powder or approved sub. Shotgun 12 or 10 Ga., requires 60 grains and above of BP or sub, 1 1/8 oz. of shot.

Yes sir, or this! Imagine them dressed in Klingon uniforms and have the one vocalist doing bat'leth routines instead of just waving his arms. CS

2009-17 Chevy Traverse battery is under a panel behind the passenger seat. CS

Started my teaching career in an elementary school building commanded by an adamantly old-school spinster principal, so dress pants, shirts and ties, "proper" shoes, and sport coat for meetings and when parents were in for conferences. Took me five years to get out of 6th Grade and move up to Junior High where I happily blended in with the crowd and went with khaki-style pants, short sleeve dressy shirt with tie and comfortable shoes...And grew my first beard! After I was transferred out of that building to my last assignment - teaching creative writing, journalism/advising the school newspaper and yearbook - I spent 19 years wearing blue jeans, light-colored shirts, ties and slip-on shoes. Post retirement I'm still blending in, but now with the rest of the old guys - short sleeve shirts, Sketchers-style shoes that don't require bending over to put on, and cargo shorts until the temp drops below about 50. Below that, switch to jeans and throw on my fleece jacket from Paradise Pass. CS

Absolutely agree - after watching my dad suffer with stenosis for many years, nearly becoming wheelchair bound, my wife and I were finally able to convince him to go for the surgery. Eight hours "on the table" made a new man out of him - started driving again and hanging out with his buddies for morning coffee. Love the "erector set" comment - Dad was a machinist and self-taught engineer/fabricator...He kept the post-op scans of his back and would happily show them off to anyone who was brave enough to see and listen to a detailed explanation of how "all that titanium and stainless" worked to put him back on his feet! CS

A common and continuing occurrence in the elementary and junior highs in the district where my wife and I taught. She was "Mrs. H" and I was "Mr. H" - the surname being only nine letters and pronounced with three syllables. Being addressed by the initial is generally seen as a sign of comfort and acceptance by the kids. We both retired in the early 2000's, but in 2022 when my wonderful daughter-in-law began working as a classroom aide in another local district, she almost immediately became known as "Mrs. H." Interesting (or not) aside - while cleaning out the house before moving out of state, I came across my wife's old school district nylon jacket, monogrammed with "Mrs. H." I didn't even get it off of the hanger before my daughter-in-law claimed it! CS

Both Iowa and Illinois have that law. Our range is in Illinois, and we yearly have a "Purple Paint Day" wherein volunteers follow the property line, renewing the purple paint. I haven't been available to work any of those days yet, so I can't say for sure exactly what or how many items are actually painted. The range itself covers 90 acres, is mostly hill land and has large, forested areas - I hear it takes a while to get the job done. CS

And after it spent the afternoon baking in the sun it was even worse the next morning when we went down to rake up the shattered cans - iron clad rule from my wife: "DO NOT even THINK about getting in my car before you hose off your shoes!" CS

Know that feeling on a "larger" scale - two summers of part-time driving a mid-1950's Chevy dump truck with manual steering and a 4-speed with Granny Low that needed regular double-clutching with the "muscle-builder" clutch pedal while making those giant throws...then the Village popped for a 1965 International Loadstar with power steering and a synchroed 5-Speed with two-speed electrically shifted rear axle (a whole new and fun ball game there!) that had Granny left and back, Reverse left and forward. With a load on, it took a deliberate move from 1st to 2nd to avoid just barely nicking Reverse and making a bad sound that was very embarrassing to the kid who thought he was a hot shot driver!

The Illowa Irregulars - Quad Cities area of Iowa and Illinois - for several years have used the categories "Working Cowboy" and "Working Cowgirl," which are no shotgun categories. They were added to our list in response to a number of our regular shooters having had shoulder surgery, and I think, one case of a recent cataract surgery. Scoring here is done electronically, and our scoring guru has it set up that we can pull scores for those categories from the overall scoring, so they stand alone as separate categories. Since folks in those categories compete only with themselves, we do not assign either misses or "P's" for the shotgun targets - no point. Since most "regular" shooters are very much interested in overall scoring, these are not well-supported categories here - there haven't been more than a few times where we actually had two shooters enter the category at an event - but it costs us nothing to keep them on the books as an option to accommodate folks who might have a physical limitation, while at the same time not affecting the overall scoring one way or the other. CS

We waited until she graduated from college. Since Catholic weddings were only done on Saturdays, that much was a given. As a JUCO transfer, Sandy had two classes to finish during summer quarter before beginning her teaching career on August 27th, while I had one to finish - and a decent-paying State job in the AV Department - before I started my student teaching, also on the 27th. This left us with a choice of August 17, 1968, her birthday, allowing time for a short honeymoon, or August 24 and off to work in two days with no honeymoon. We agreed on the 17th, and after our 1st anniversary celebrated birthday/anniversary on alternate years - her idea, not mine. Count

Fair enough on the hijacking! Yuve Yuve Yu is a good one, kind of a rock beat. I like Wolf Totem myself - more of what I would think traditional, albeit done in less than traditional Mongolian garb! 1:49 for the start of the serious throat singing, and captioning works. Count

Didn't want to hijack the thread so figured I'd wait a bit to post this. Mongolian version of throat singing combined with modern metal-style music - definitely unique, and probably not for everyone's taste. The group is called UUHAI. First bit of throat singing is at about 33 seconds. Count

And if you have flowering plants outside, pull the corks right over them and let the fluid flow - good fertilizer, works great on hostas!

Thanks for the memories, Dave! Long time since I heard the sound of a Linotype in operation...! My first job after high school was as a laborer in a 3-person small-town weekly newspaper office/ job shop printer. Mrs. Wilson owned the place, was the reporter/editor/salesperson. The printer went by the name "Young Bill", while the Linotype operator was "Old Bill." I was not an apprentice, so didn't get the title of Printer's Devil, but did many of the tasks just the same. One of the jobs after a press run was to help Young Bill break down the assembled type. Then I got to melt it down and cast it into the long ingots the linotype machine used. The ingots were about two feet long, and around 2 1/2 inches wide. After the ingots were cooled, I had to carry them back to the Linotype machine and hold them in place while Old Bill physically hooked them to the chains - NO ONE but him was allowed to touch ANY part of the Linotype, not even the boss! The handles on the molds were convenient for moving them around in the melt shed, but I soon learned the hard way that they were not for carrying the ingots back inside...2-foot long chunks of tin, antimony and lead can do bad things to a floor, or a dumb kid's foot when they shrink and fall out of the mold! Picture of molds is attached

None of our usual monthly shooters has achieved that status as yet, but we have had 1 El Ray at each of the last two Illinois State Shoots - same gentleman. FWIW, we've had either 5 or 6 El Patrons at each of those shoots, so there are more El Rays in the pipeline, so to speak! Count

High Overall at the Wisconsin State Championship, Fandango! CS

On Practiscore, try this link: https://practiscore.com/results/new/6b3f5404-b8b4-4788-a31d-c85a5608e420 CS

Try this https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Mj8ZrGCizTub2N2PHS0nlnqfa2fpSTH7 "Gunsmoke 2023" should be at the top of the list. Download the file and proceed from there. CS

Scores are up on the CVV website. CS

Bingo! The Borg assimilated them and any useful technology, then used Earth as a garbage dump for what was left... CS

WE had to call out "Lucky Strike, no strike back!" CS