Reminds me of Harlan Ellison's story about his appearance in one of the trials for The Dating Game. "Catered picnic lunch at the city dump... Matching nickle-plated .45s..."
When I was young, a favorite sport was hitting the town dump at night, with a powerful flashlight and a .22 rifle. We'd put a dab of white paint on the front sight so we could see it, then open fire. After a while, we'd have to shut off the light for a short while to let the rats get brave again; it was common to kill dozens of them in a single night.
About 30 years ago when Da Missus and I drove back to S.Dak. for a visit, my lil' brother, then 16 and I took our .22's to the dump for some rat shooting. We got there just after sundown, with nine other pickup loads of local yoots. We were having a ball shooting rats by flashlight when the local Gendarmarie showed up, deployed their powerful spotlight and two full auto AR's. After a magazine full each, they got a couple cases of ammo out of their trunk, had the kids start loading magazines and let 'em machine gun rats for three quarters of an hour. The kids in town loved the cops. Now that's some good PR.
Peter Hathawy Capstick wrote an article for G&A, years ago, about hunting the dreaded bull Gundwain (sp?). Since he was a writer of African hunting adventures it read just like one. Turned out he was hunting rats on a dock in Florida using Big Macs as bait. A friend sold high-end air rifles to a group of docs in NYC who told him they shot rats off the dumpsters in the alley behind their office for lunch-hour stress relief
I had a stare down with a rat the size of a 'possum at the local subway station. It won - I looked away first and scuttled away.
ReplyDeleteI busted my gut reading that!
ReplyDeleteI love chaos.
Oh my that was funny.
ReplyDeleteMy co-worker keeps looking askance at me as I read my phone and stifle laughter.
Exceeeellent!
ReplyDeleteThanks,
ReplyDeleteI needed to start my weekend off with a laugh and that was certainly funnier than all get out.
Gmac
Reminds me of Harlan Ellison's story about his appearance in one of the trials for The Dating Game. "Catered picnic lunch at the city dump... Matching nickle-plated .45s..."
ReplyDeleteOh my dear sweet Jesus...
ReplyDeleteNow I know why the stats on my blog just went all Saturn V launch.
Glad I could entertain.
Thanks for the link/notice, Tam.
There was an article in Soldier Of
ReplyDeleteFortune years ago about two guys
going after dumpster rats in some southern town.
They were a lot quieter since they were using scoped air rifles and the rats were a lot deader afterward.
Ran across the guy who wrote it
posting on a gun board a few months ago.
"Hey, I remember that article!"
When I was young, a favorite sport was hitting the town dump at night, with a powerful flashlight and a .22 rifle. We'd put a dab of white paint on the front sight so we could see it, then open fire. After a while, we'd have to shut off the light for a short while to let the rats get brave again; it was common to kill dozens of them in a single night.
ReplyDeleteYou probably can't do that today... <>
About 30 years ago when Da Missus and I drove back to S.Dak. for a visit, my lil' brother, then 16 and I took our .22's to the dump for some rat shooting. We got there just after sundown, with nine other pickup loads of local yoots. We were having a ball shooting rats by flashlight when the local Gendarmarie showed up, deployed their powerful spotlight and two full auto AR's. After a magazine full each, they got a couple cases of ammo out of their trunk, had the kids start loading magazines and let 'em machine gun rats for three quarters of an hour. The kids in town loved the cops. Now that's some good PR.
ReplyDeleteGerry N.
Peter Hathawy Capstick wrote an article for G&A, years ago, about hunting the dreaded bull Gundwain (sp?). Since he was a writer of African hunting adventures it read just like one. Turned out he was hunting rats on a dock in Florida using Big Macs as bait.
ReplyDeleteA friend sold high-end air rifles to a group of docs in NYC who told him they shot rats off the dumpsters in the alley behind their office for lunch-hour stress relief