Writings from Arthur Earl Grimm, Jr.

The Day I Shot Wilma

When I was a kid of maybe 6 or 7, my heroes were the brave cowboys who galloped across the silent silver screen in hot , though silent, pursuit of the villianlous Indians.They seemed, at times, to burst from the screen right into the darkened theater.

Then came the talking cowboys like Tom Mix and other riders of the purple sage. Their yells of battle sounded above the clatter of horse hooves as they swept into Indian territory in close pursuit of the Red Man.

Looking back, I kind of miss the days when every Indian was fair game. There was no doubt about the Red Enemy in those days. Those devilish scalp hunters earned everything we could do to them. We, inded, were the Great White Hunters. Armed with my cap pistol and my homemade wooden rifle, I made it my imaginary task to chase down those evil rascals and send them off to their happy hunting grounds. I recall that that I -- by myself -- took on a dozen imaginary foes, scattering them in full flight into the cow pasture just behind the family two-holer.

My pursuit of the Red Devils often extended to Grandpa Ortman's barn, where I installed an ambush site far up in the hayloft where I could mow 'em down as they came through the barn door. I no longer recall how many Indians I wiped out from that hayloft, but the numbers would certainly fill the wagon down on the floor. Though I can vividly recalll my victories of those days, the time came to move on to more adventers with or without my beloved imaginary firearms. I enlisted my younger brother, Charles to go with me in adventures further afield. I figured this was the time to get real.

I like to say that we followed the Dung Beetle example in our search for wondrous adventure . These energetic little buggers go into cow dung -- prairie pancakes -- dig out a tasty portion, emerge and trundle the ball of food down a dusty cow path to their homes. If you have never followed a Dung Beele down a cowpath, you've missed one of the glories of being a kid on a farm. If you wished, you could equate this to the fairy tale of the girl bursting through the looking glass into a new and wondrous world. I will mention just a couple more of these adventures on the farm so you can get an idea of life there for us kids.

A favorite foray of ours during tomato seson was to a nearby farm where tomatos were in abounced. Maybe we felt we were doing something dangerous, but the farmer knew exactly where we were and why. We would get several tomatos and go to a cow pasture where blocks of succulent salt sat . They were for the cows but they also provded an excellent souce of salt for our tomatos. Like the cows, we licked the salt block as we ate the tomatos.

Yes, we "stole' watermelons too. B ut that's a dfferent story. Our favorite adventure came when we went camping along Paint Creek at a nearby farm.

We set up our camp at he edge of a cornfield at a time when the corn was ripe for the picking, and roast them over our campfire. We tried for fields of sweet corn, but regular corn would do. This, to us, was kind of living off the land if you ignore the fact that we brought along sandwiches and cookies. We swam in the creek, drank from it and enjoyed watching an occasional snake slither across the water. Were they the deadly Water Moccasin? We don't know.

As we tired of our forays int Ohio's wilds we moved back into a gun phase, this time with a real gun, an ancient BB gun with just enough power to fire a BB maybe 20 feet in a rainbow kind of path. I became pretty good at hitting a target by aiming high enough to allow for the force of gravity..

My fun with this powerful weapon reached an unexpected climax on a day i was having great success at hitting a knot hole in the side of a shed in the yard.

This was the day I shot Wilma.

I don't recall how old Wilma was at the time- maybe 3 or 4,but she was in the shed on one of the times I hit my target. Her voice suddenly became much louder than you'd expect from a kid of her age when that B stung her thigh. The heavens opened up with her screams of pain and surprise. She bound from the shed, her screams sweeping across the yard, down the street and into alll nearby houses. The ruckus attracted Mom, who appeared at the screen door and gathered her baby into her protective apron. I need not detail the punishment I got on the day I shot Wilma. Suffice it to say that I never, ever, fired that Daisy BB gun again.

The Great White hunter had met his Waterloo. And the weapon that had been his pride and joy was sent to the same Happy Hunting Grounds where those long ago imaginary Redskins lay.

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