You Go When Your Number's Up

I came close to cashing in my chips yesterday (Saturday, 10/19/2019), but was saved at the last minute.  Here's the entire story in excruciating detail.


My brother Big Mike invited me out for a round of sporting clays at the Black Wing Shooting Center, 3722 Marysville Road in Delaware, Ohio.  It's a great place to go shooting.  All I have to say about sporting clays is that I enjoy it, and if you ever run into a skeet or trap shooter that thinks they can shoot and is getting a swelled head, just invite them out for a round of sporting clays.  They'll get a lesson in humility that they won't forget anytime soon.  Especially trap shooters, who are an arrogant, anti-social lot to begin with.

I'm shooting an Ithaca Model 37 in 12 gauge, with seven-and-a-half shot in target loads. It's a light gun, but it'll bruise your shoulder if you aren't careful.  Me being a manly man and all, I don't care about a bruised shoulder.  What's a few bruises and a little swelling?  Just be sure to hold your shotgun tight to your shoulder and remember to make sure the fillings in your teeth are tight.  You'll be just fine.

One round is 100 clay pigeons.  I didn't keep track of my count, although I will next time.  I probably broke over half, which is respectable score.  The best I was able to do was at station four, where I broke two birds with a single shot - on purpose, and did it twice.  The way this station is set up, the birds will cross at a single point, hence the two for one shot is possible.  On my first try pieces from one clay smashed into the other and broke it.  Okay, I'll take it.  I'm not proud.   The second shot I was dead on, and all that remained of those two birds was a cloud of dust.

Ha! Gotcha!

After twenty stations and four boxes of shells, I was really worn out.  We planned to go and try out a new Tiki restaurant after the shoot, which sounded good to me.

Big Mike found the Huli Huli Tiki Lounge, located at 26 W Olentangy Street in Powell, Ohio, and it's everything we'd hoped for.  The drinks were well above average, and the food is solid.  The service was spotty until we befriended the bartender, who was a shooter and a good guy.  The prices at the Huli Huli are in keeping with the food - we intend to return for another round.

The bad part about the Huli Huli is the band.  The drummer and bass player are solid.  The guitar player is not.  He showed up with a dozen foot pedals and he only needs one.  He failed to set his equipment up correctly - he gets feedback and static - and he doesn't understand that louder isn't better, and that the room is small.

We left before he really got rolling.

The other bad part is that the city of Powell is having some kind of local ceremony involving a bonfire, music, and I don't know what all.  I do know that the local PD was out in force and were issuing tickets for moving violations as quickly as they could.

We, Big Mike and I, were walking back to Mike's car.  We needed to cross the street, so we walked up to the crosswalk which has an orange sign in the center of the road:

Yield to Pedestrians

State Law

Traffic is heavy and slow in the far lane, but the lane closest to us is open.  I started to walk across, and Mike pulled me back in the nick of time.  Some driver ignored the sign entirely and blew through the crosswalk at about 35 mph.  Had I kept walking he would have struck and killed me, just as sure as I'm drinking gin tonight.

But he didn't, and the cops didn't see it which is a shame, and I didn't have anything to throw at him; not even lead from a .38 revolver.