OFF ON A TANGENT ABOUT TARGETS
My husband and his older
brother liked to play darts. One day
they got into an argument over something about the game. My husband was about 7 or 8 at the time. He had quite a temper and as his brother
turned to leave the room, he threw a dart at his brother’s backside. Obviously he’d been on the losing end of the
argument! I don’t recall what his
punishment was for that little trick, but the family laughed about it for
years.
The Queen Mum lets loose a dart in 1937.
During rehabilitation
following her accident resulting in brain injury, one of my eldest daughter’s
exercises was to toss darts at a dartboard.
Here, her therapist helps her stand up to reach for a dart.
I took a picture of the result! She’s right-handed, but that side of her body was not yet working properly, so she threw these darts left-handed. Not too shabby!
Arrows fly toward these
targets.
I tried my hand at archery
for a while but I lacked the necessary hand and arm strength to really do
anything. I could pull a 30 lb bow, but
I couldn’t keep it steady and you can’t shoot very accurately if you can’t hold
your bow steady! My arrows went
everywhere except where they were supposed to go. Most of the time they didn’t even hit the
haystacks the targets were stuck on. Oh
well.
These are my husband’s
rifle targets. He was constantly
adjusting things on his rifles to better his aim. Every year he went elk hunting in November
and for months prior, he’d be down at the local gun club sighting in his
rifles. Looks like whichever rifle he
was using here, he improved his aim pretty well between April 4 and June
15. And I do believe we stocked our big freezer with elk steaks,
roasts, and sausage that year. J
“Bummer of a birthmark,
Hal.”
“Pin the Tail on the
Donkey” is a game with a target area – just not generally shown with a circular
target though I did find this unusual version.
“Pin the Tail on the
Donkey” is reported to have been created in 1899 by a woman named Kate
Hunt. Perhaps this is Kate showing
children how to play the game. Perhaps
not. But the photo looks 1899ish, so
maybe?
Adults playing “Pin the
Tail on the Donkey” in 1901.
These adults are playing
some version of “Pin the Tail on the Donkey” but the fellow currently adding a
tail in the exact right spot is cheating!
So what, you wonder, do
Frill Picks have to do with target shooting?
Many years ago when I went
shopping in Crescent City – an 18 mile drive from home, I’d stop in Denny’s for
lunch usually ordering a burger which always came with one of these Frill Picks
stuck in it to hold it together.
One day I happened to
glance up at the acoustical ceiling above the booth I was sitting in and saw the
frilly ends of a bunch of Frill Picks stuck in it and asked about it.
The waitress sighed as she explained how the high schoolers would come in after school, order burgers & shakes, take the Frill Picks out of their burgers, put them – frills first – into the end of their milkshake straws, then blow them at the ceiling where they stuck.
Now, whenever I’m dining
in a fast-food place, I check to see what type of ceiling they have and if it’s
acoustical, I’ll usually find a few frilly toothpicks stuck up
there.
Did I ever try doing that? Heh heh, yeah. :[]
You can tell right where
the booths underneath are by the groupings of the frillies stuck up there. J
Picture is from Napa, Calif.’s “Squeeze In”
:->
La Nightingail
The toothpicks in the ceiling are certainly a record of some young people's (and older?) good times! Loved seeing all the target shots (pardon the pun) er photos. I was pretty good as a teen at archery, and even taught it to younger kids in a summer camp once. Didn't keep it up. Learned to shoot guns with my husband at plastic bottles and cans. Then I became very anti-gun...what with all the violence that US schools were having.
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