Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/433799
S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 1 1 8 book about something other than guns or hunting. I quietly marveled at his sense of humor. After all, why would anyone want to read anything else? We usually went to town together on Saturday mornings and parked the old fluid-drive Dodge pickup near the library. I would assault the steps two-for-one, slow before opening the door, then politely return the most recently devoured book without forgetting to thank the volunteer minding the desk. While dad was across the way at the post office and visiting with someone or other, I pawed through the outdoor section. I worked fast, knowing if I did there was a good chance we could stop at Valley Hardware. That place was my Valhalla and Mr. Fairchild, the man who ran the gun department, was just as surely its Odin. He was also famous, for it was none other than Mr. Fairchild who gave the weekly hunting and fishing report on the town's radio station. It made me feel pretty special to be his advisor, best friend, and generally favorite person in the whole entire world. Once inside the store, I made sure that Mr. Fairchild I grew up in a town so small that my dad could drive us from one end to the other in less time than it took me to sound out a big word from a library book. I wasn't a slow reader, either, but it's also fair to mention that my father wasn't in the habit of applying any more pressure to the foot feed than what was required to achieve forward motion. Anyway, most of the people living there were not overly fond of big words. It seemed all right to know what they meant, but using them out loud marked one as a show-off—a significant social ill at that time. Being precocious, I didn't see how using words, big or otherwise, could do any harm. Of course, the only words that gained my attention were the names of places where my heroes hunted, all related geographical or historical references, and anything related to ballistics. Those words were committed to memory with grand purpose. Dad encouraged my frequent visits to the library. He was also in the habit of gently suggesting that I might, at some point, maybe just once consider borrowing a photos by dwight van bRunt