June 2006

If that's really a gun then I'm on your side

I worked my first “Clays Classic” last week and I’d highly recommend it as an antidote for personal aggrandizement.

In layman’s terms that means that if you’re the kind of knucklehead that has to be in charge of everything at all times, you’re about to be brought down a peg. Or several pegs depending on the caliber of the weapon.

The Clays Classic, you see, is a shooting competition between people who like to make loud noises and blow things to smithereens. The Chamber Foundation, which was created four years ago to generate tax-exempt funding for educational programming aimed primarily at youth, decided to hold a fundraiser that would be a little different than, say, basket bingo.

Somehow they settled on an event with a high degree of local appeal and a pretty fair financial upside despite the fact that two of its key ingredients were guns and alcohol. To its credit, the Foundation Board of Directors has managed to keep that lethal combination sufficiently separated. No one, including the catering staff, is permitted to get anywhere near a firearm if they’ve had so much as a sniff of cooking sherry within the last thirty days. At least that’s what they told me. And probably our liability insurance carrier too.

From the moment that I arrived at the Hillendale Hunt Club for the Clays Classic, I was reminded that my role there was not to be ceremonial. They needed volunteers to serve as scorers at each of the seventeen stations designated as part of the competition. I might as well have had a big “V” on my sweater.

The instructions, I was told, were simple. A score sheet would be provided for each shooter. Scorers would simply mark an “X” on the score sheet if the clay was in any way impacted by the shot and a “0” if it wasn’t.

That seemed much too simple to me.

While I‘ll admit that my attention span has regressed to slightly above that of a houseplant, certain things still catch my attention. I guess it must have been that last part of the instructions where the scorers were told that they very seldom had to make any judgments that would affect the outcome of the shoot.

As the other scorers were asking questions about whether they should take umbrellas with them to their assigned stations, I was attempting to get an interpretation on the term “very seldom.” As one ordinarily not uncomfortable with confrontation, I wondered for a moment the most logical tactic that one might employ when the complainant is carrying a 20-gage shotgun.

I believe that person has earned the right to some special consideration.

All in all, I really enjoyed my first clay shoot. Among my more vivid observations were that many of the guns being used at the event cost more than my car and that the little disposable earplugs that I was advised to wear to keep from going deaf were designed by someone who had never seen the inside of an ear.

I also came to the realization that one of my staff members, Linda Stotler, is a pretty darn good shooter. This was Linda’s third Clays Classic and she finished well ahead of many of her male counterparts. I think it was just after she obliterated six clays in a row that I came to the conclusion that her annual employee evaluation could possibly be her best ever.

I can’t be bought but being shot is another matter.

The success of the Clays Classic during its initial three years undoubtedly means that there will be a 2007 edition. I plan to be ready. Between now and then, I plan to purchase a shotgun, a fancy bag to carry it in and a safari outfit similar to one I saw one of the shooters wearing last week. Then I’ll buy a set of headphones that will completely drown-out all noise within a fifty mile radius of Hillendale.

My last purchase will be a single can of beer which I will drink five minutes before the start of the shoot. Then, in my capacity as The Chamber’s representative to the Foundation, I will be forced to immediately disqualify myself from the competition and order that I be removed from the premises for the safety of all.

Guns and alcohol. They never mix you know.

Past Chamber Notes

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