So... last weekend we had this even called
Schützenfest in our village. It's a sort of big party with beer, sausages, fries, carousel and all that kind of attractions, kind of like your small country fair.
And a shooting competition.
It's held by a Schützenverein, which is an association ("Verein") of people who like to shoot. They have a long tradition in these parts that reaches back hundreds of years. Every village, no matter how small, has such an association.
Now, I'm a big city boy who only recently moved to the country side. As such, I have my views on these kinds of events and the people that hold them. To city folks like me, people in such associations are philistines with backward views and simple world views.
So yeah, we went anyway. Not during the disco hours when absolutely everyone is drunk out of their minds, but during the afternoon, when there's only a somewhat moderate level of jeering and carousing, and you can still find some people who're still sober. Somewhat sober. Mostly. Well, at least not "can't lie on the floor without holding on to something" drunk.
I wasn't going to try my luck at the price shooting, because if you accidentally win, you're in trouble, because all of a sudden you're obliged to do weird things and have a wooden disk nailed to your house and throw a big breakfast the next day and stuff like that. Considering the general level of drunkenness, I thought I'd just visit one of those fair booths where you can shoot an air rifle for fun and/or prices.
Now, last time I did that was probably 30 years ago and I was really bad at it. Really really bad. But I said to myself, now that you're here, you might as well. So I had a go and my first shot was... way off. But then I had a good run and in the end, 12 of 15 shots hit home and I won a plush flamingo and a plastic rose for my girlfriend.
And it was fun!
So yeah uh.. not sure where I was going with this story, but I had a good time firing a rifle so I guess it counts