Many of you have met my wife Tammy over the years at the LA Lit meet weekend... she's been there helping me for probably the last 10 years (along with my "brother of another mother" Gary Emory).
She's a wonderful wife and mother. Extremely accomplished in her own right as a VP at Marcus & Millichap Commercial Real Estate, she's on the "debt" side and makes it happen for the sales guys. To say she's a "hitter" is an understatement....
What many don't know is that she is a farm girl, born and raised in dry land wheat farming land in Eastern WA. Tammy how to drive on a farm truck with no synchros, and drove truck as teenager during harvest. What that means is that she had to drive next to the combine as it was cutting the wheat and it gets threshed and then thrown into the truck. Tammy learned how to drive a combine, but that was the "cush" job according to her and the real job was driving the truck next to the combine and matching the the speed and making sure you were filling your it accurately from the back to the front "level".
Little did I know what I was getting into. The weekend when I went to meet her parents for the first time, I was "invited" by her father to help trench a septic line at his mothers home in sub zero temps, ... "welcome to the family". Having worked through this type of stuff and more for my father for many years, fortunately I managed to acquit myself.
Eastern Washington is not "city folk" and different things happen when you're growing up in the country. Tammy (as I found out) was a "crack" shot, and was part of the team that went to "state" when she was in high school. 10 shots in 10 different positions. Tammy was 2nd in state, at 97 to a guy who got 99.
It trickles down.. both sons (Andy and Nik) are very accomplished in target shooting etc, both earning "top shot" during summer camps in Boy Scouts in small bore rifles. Not from me, as I don't have an affinity for it (Side note that my father was a bronze star recipient in WW2, but had an aversion to guns after the war).
So, it's Tammy's Birthday today. And what do the boys do? Pool their $ and buy Tammy a Winchester 101 Ultimate Sporting "over under" Clay/Target shotgun.
If you've seen Christmas Story, then you have a pretty good idea of the look on her face as she's opening the box up. The box was red.... just like the one in the movie... you would have thought it was the Red Rider all over again. She opens it up... pulls it out... assembles it.. ask's "what's it weigh 7lbs?" (it's 7.1lbs) and is it a 30 inch barrel? (it is..). Fortunately her dad lives next door to a friend with a personal gun range.
Picture attached.
Note that we live in a bit of an unusual "house".. it's a 1922 machine shop (6 inch floors) and we have a loft in the top 2 floors with a roof cabana, and then we rent out the bottom floors to a couple of very talented artists. We are in the marine commercial area of Seattle along the ship canal and our neighbors are Western Tug and Foss Tug. I have 2 garages for cars.
The house was Tammy's idea.... how did I get so lucky?
Looking forward to seeing if I can even hit a clay pigeon with my side by side Benelli as no doubt I will be dragged along for the family "sport"Side note that both boys have "target" shotguns, Andy has a 50 year old Winchester over/under that's Japanese made and is supposed to be very nice. Nik's gun is pretty nice from what I understand (CZ Woodcock G2), but thinks he's ready for a Beretta 686 Silver Pigeon (none of this means anything to me)....
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