I had told him several times to not do it. But I guess he couldn’t help himself.

Tyler was living with his family in San Antonio. He was probably around 5 years old. When I would go down there to check on jobs, I’d often bring my oldest grandson back home to Bertram with me.

I bought him one of the wooden rubber band guns when we left San Antonio. The revolver type, that held multiple rubber bands. Several times he pointed it at me, in a playful teasing way. Each time I’d tell him “you had better not shoot me with that thing“.

Just before we got to Round Mountain, temptation finally got to him and he pulled the trigger and popped me on the ear. I remember that it stung pretty good, but I didn’t let on to him that it hurt.

As soon as he wasn’t aware and guarded, I reached across an snatched it from his hand. I rolled the window down and let it fly across the roof of my truck and into the bar ditch. It took him a little while for it to sink in that the gun was gone for good. He wanted me to go back and get it. That wasn’t in the cards.

Even though that happened well over 20 years ago, it is a subject that comes up every so often when Tyler and I are visiting.

This was back in his hockey playing days. I’d always try to go down on game days.