It's well known in my family that, if you're good and your parents agree, Opa will take you shooting with him someday.
In fact, it's become somewhat of a Rite of Passage among my kids and grandkids. I see them all measuring each other against some imaginary "You must be this tall for this ride" sign in my living room, until they're big enough that Opa will give them "the safety talk" and place a loaded firearm in their hands.
Opa? That's me, by the way. The "Opa-nator." "Commander Curmudgeon."
As my kids will readily attest, I was King Grump all through their childhoods. My favorite word, sometimes, seemed to be "no" or "maybe" or "we'll see." My grandkids see right through that facade, and know me for the soft touch that I really am.
But when it comes to firearms, I am the righteous Voice of Wisdom and Wrath, and I make a big deal out of instructing my grandkids in the lore of boom sticks.
I think that, when kids are raised in the presence of powerful machines -- be they automobiles or firearms -- the machines take on a kind of unearthly glamour and a hint of powerful promise. That hint, that allure, is the siren song that gets some young people killed unless someone takes them by the hand and instructs them in the respectful, safe operation of said machines.
I can remember when I was teaching Johanna to drive, she got a little giddy behind the wheel her first couple of times. When she made a silly mistake, she even started to giggle.
I squelched that right quickly. "You are behind the wheel of a machine that has killed more kids your age than all my firearms put together," I sternly told her. "This is not just a car ... it can be a killing machine! Now get your head back in the driver's seat and focus!"
I never wanted her to fear driving. I just wanted her to have a healthy respect for how quickly and irrevocably things can go wrong with automobiles. Same thing with firearms. My kids always knew they were in the house. They knew that they were forbidden territory UNLESS I put one in their hands. Then, when they gained sufficient age and maturity, I began teaching them to shoot.
Actually shooting a firearm, I find, was almost an anticlimax for them. When they realized that, under proper instruction, the lessons were going to be about patience, and muscle control and slow, almost zen-like breathing; range time then became more of a meditative practice than shoot-em-up.
Which leads me back to my modest proposal.
I will teach all my grandchildren about shooting and proper respect and care of a firearm. My three grandsons will probably love shooting and trigger time, as comes with the "Y" Chromosome.
But it's the girls, I think, that will benefit the most.
Nationally, studies still show that boys tend to dominate classroom discussions. Nationally, studies show it's the girls who still tend to hang back and defer to each other. Nationally, studies show that girls are plagued with more self-doubt than their male peers.
But when a semi-elderly grandparent takes them to the sanctum-sanctorum (rifle range), tells them they can do it, and places a loaded firearm in their hands, you can almost see the self-confidence ratchet up inside them several notches.
Then, once they get beyond their first shot jitters, and they realize the little .22 cal isn't going to hurt, they actually start to like it. Then, or so I hear, they go back to class the following day and get "I-went-shooting-with-my-grandfather" bragging rights. Even rambunctious middle school boys will back down a little to a report like that.
I've taken my three oldest granddaughters to the range now, and all three are superb markswomen-in-the-making. (The US Navy actually studied the eye/hand coordination of male and female jet pilots, and found that women out-do men in all categories, once they find their confidence.)
Hopefully, what I've done here is plant seeds of self-confidence that will see my grandkids through all the trials that life is going to throw at them in the years to come.
And, let's be frank ... our time on the planet is limited. My time with my grandkids is something like formatting a message to the Future. Hopefully the message I'm sending through my kids and grandkids equals, "I was here. I mattered in someone's life. I hope you love my family, because I did and they carry, in part, my DNA and my values."
Anyway, the look in Maddie's eyes recently as she looked at her targets, made it all worth it, message-or-no-message. "Opa, this is WAY better than school!" she said.
Amen to that.
