They shoot canoes, don’t they?
The morning sun shone brightly across my frost covered little square range. I surveyed my kingdom from a chunk of remnant football field turf.
It is an adorable little parcel tucked neatly behind our barn, barely noticeable to passers by. It is a sixty foot by sixty-foot slice of heaven. My happy place… my solace, if you will.
In the spirit of baseball fields and putting greens, I keep it manicured with an old push reel mower. Target backers are replaced as they wear. Crisp white lines mark the firing line, painstakingly repainted every week giving the place a tidy feel. Weeds are removed religiously. Everything in its place.
I love that friends and neighbors gather regularly to sight in rifles or practice with their sidearms. It truly takes a village, and this is the “downtown” section of our village.
It has been indicated that the reason the grass grows so green upon our range may be the result of the overwhelming amount of B.S. accumulating from our problem-solving sessions. Truly, great work is being done on the range.
Because of the deep affection which I hold for this place, one can only imagine the shock that overcame me when I glanced to the right of the range, noticing two neat little 9mm holes entering the port side bow of our canoe and exiting starboard.
Our canoe is stored upside down, to one side of the range, forty-five degrees to the shooter’s right. Shooting said canoe would not have been an easily accomplished undertaking.
In order to have achieved this incredible feat of marksmanship, one would have to shoot crosswise (catawampus if you will) across the range. No easy task.
I have explored multiple scenarios as to how this feat of idiocy could have occurred. I will share them with you and would await responses from my loyal readership that might help explain this heinous canoe abuse.
By my own admission, I am not a criminal investigator, attaining the mere rank of patrolman. I do, however, watch some CSI reruns, so I’ve got that going for me, which is nice, I think.
Initially, I believe a ninja could have breached the property, after hours, doing ninja type stuff and thrust a pair of scythes, point first into the bow of our canoe. Although plausible, I don’t think the ninja scenario likely as the holes match to a 9mm round.
Also, there are relatively few ninjas inhabiting the Washington-Greene County area at this time. Scythes would more than likely have left different sized holes juxtaposed in the canoe frame due to their tapered shaft.
Which leads me to theory No. 2. We are hosting some sort of metal incising hybrid vampire beaver on our stream, and he has made his presence known by attacking our canoe. I am checking with the DNR as we speak to look further into this possibility. We’ve all heard stories of wolves and mountain lions being stocked by the Game Commission.
I would like to know if our tax dollars are being misspent on hybrid beaver programming. Since the Pittman-Robertson Act currently funds a large portion of the PGC’s endeavors, I’ll also consider the hybrid beaver theory unlikely.
It is possible a small meteor shower occurred across the road from our farmhouse and being localized, only affected the immediate canoe site.
Having seen no damage to the steel building adjacent to the canoe crime, I think it would be reaching to push the intergalactic meteor shower hypothesis, but it is still open for discussion.
One last explanation could account for the resultant crimes against canoes.
Possibilities include but are not limited to former graduates of my Alpha Omega Shooting Solutions school, local members of the law enforcement community, an overzealous prepper, one of the seven dwarfs, an embittered family member or a woods sprite could have set up a drill similar to “el presidente,” in which the shooter engages three targets, one directly in front and two, to the shooter’s oblique right and left and inadvertently launched rounds into a defenseless canoe and fled like a coward. Or possibly didn’t even notice they shot an innocent canoe.
The magic bullet theory from the JFK assassination would also have to be entertained but is not under close scrutiny at this time.
The canoe obituary read, “She was a good canoe and never bothered anyone, popular with the other sporting craft in our area and will be missed.”
I thought about starting a GoFundMe page for our canoe. Truth be told, the canoe was a gift from my former police chief, Jim Vogel, when he moved back to Pittsburgh, and didn’t want to haul it, so in reality, it cost me nothing.
All I really want is a package of marine grade J.B. Weld and the opportunity to make fun of the person who shot my canoe. Being a police officer, I know how merciless fellow officers can be when someone does something stupid and the others won’t let it go.
There would be canoes placed in dressing stations, canoes in mailboxes, canoe key chains, canoe lamps, and G.I. Joe canoes. Someone might even drop off an old canoe at their house. The possibilities are endless.