Annie Oakley

One of my mother's nicknames for me-when guns are in mind-is Annie Oakley. Today my parents and I were talking about one of the incidences (I think the very first one) that earned me that nickname. I would just like to share that with you.

Growing up we always had chickens. They were usually plain white, though the roosters were often different colors. They would always wander about the yard eating worms, fallen apples, and whatever else they could find.

One day my oldest brother, Jamin, and I were standing out on the back deck watching the chickens. I couldn't have been any older than 8 years old (though I was probably 6 or 7). Jamin was probably about 16 or 17. Then he got this bright idea. He went inside where my mom was fixing lunch. He asked her if he could see if I could shoot one of the chickens. She thought he meant with a BB gun, and plus I had never really shot before and never at a moving target, so she had no problem with it.

So Jamin brought out his gun. Only it wasn't his BB gun... it was his .22. He handed the me the gun, which was almost as big as I was. He pointed to one of the chickens and said, "Hey, Jess. Shoot that chicken. That one."
"Ok."

I pulled the gun up over the rail and placed the butt of the gun on my shoulder. Jamin stood beside me with a look of curiosity and humor on his face. I aimed at the chicken, bobbing it's head as it walked, and squeezed the trigger...

Jamin's expression quickly changed to shock and disbelief. I had nailed the chicken right in the head and killed it. With the gun still positioned in my arms, I looked up at him.

"She killed it! Oh my heck! I can't believe she killed it!"
My mom walked out onto the deck in answer to Jamin's shouting. "Oh, she didn't kill it," she calmly replied. Then she looked off the deck and saw the dead chicken.

They buried the chicken to "hide the evidence." But it was in vain. When my dad got home, I was so please with myself, that I ran up and told him that I had shot and killed a chicken. The only thing that he was really upset about was that, with a clean headshot, they had buried it, so now we couldn't eat it.

We all find the memory quite funny now. Though, since then, no one has ever told me to shoot anything unless they were completely serious.