A first for me

Believe it or not, I've never been to a gun show before Saturday.

Let me back up.

We got up early Saturday morning to go to the annual Exchange Club of Columbus' pancake breakfast. We, being me, my mother, my brother Fred, my sister Nancy and her husband John and my youngest sister Patty and her husband John.

After eating all the pancakes we could eat, we went to the gun show at the Columbus Convention & Trade Center.

Nancy drove her husband home, but met us at the Trade Center. My mother, whom I thought would be the last person interested in a gun show, insisted on going. She said she could die and say she'd been to a gun show!

Silly woman. Of course, she said she could die happy because she finally got to see Frank Sinatra in concert in 1996. It was a couple of years before he died and he used these huge teleprompters with the lyrics. I mean, we were far from the stage but we could read them. It was kind of sad.

Getting back to the gun show ...

I don't think I'd ever held a gun before. I've been skeet shooting, so I have shot a shotgun and got a bruise on my shoulder. And I did hit the clay target! OK. It was once and it was a lucky shot because it was the very first.

Anyway, a handgun is what I'm talking about. Fred was a police officer for 27 years and he has plenty of handguns. I've never held one.

But since there were so many laying around, I had to pick them up. The thing is, they're very heavy. And my hand is about the size of a third-grader's. Most of them were way to big for my hand. Some of them, I wouldn't be able to shoot because my finger wouldn't go around the trigger!

My mother and I laughed, especially when she picked up a gun and asked, "You can kill somebody with this?"

Yes, if it were loaded, we told her.

My brother went to the gun show because he wanted to find a black powder gun. Or rifle. Or shotgun. I don't know. Something with black powder.

Being a guy, did he ask?

No.

I did and the dealer said though he carries black powder, he didn't have a firearm that used it.

But then I couldn't find Fred to tell him.

I did overhear a couple talking. They were very young. She was looking at jewelry. Believe it or not, there were several jewelry booths. He said, "You go to a gun show to try on jewelry?" She said, "Why not?"

Why not, indeed.

You'll be glad to know that I didn't buy a gun.

My editor at the time said she was frightened when she found out that I had been out skeet shooting. What, did she think I'd come in and gun her down?

Come to think of it, maybe.