A Confession by Anonymous:        Boyhood and BB guns

I was in grade school, probably 6th grade.  BB guns were readily available.  In fact I sold Christmas cards door-to-door a couple years earlier to raise enough money for my Red Rider rifle.  I was at a friend’s house in the San Fernando Valley where new housing tracts were often built around the remnants of the old citrus orchards - usually oranges.  Dave had a large orange tree in the back yard that was in full bloom and attracting loads of wild life to the nectar rich flowers.  The bees were too hard to shoot down with our BB rifles, but there were also birds.  Normally, a humming bird moves so erratically and swiftly that I would not have thought it possible to hit one while in flight.  But I did.  I dropped to the ground as Whoomp of the fired gun subsided.  I am not sure I was as sick of the event at the time or it weighed on me more heavily over time; but I never shot another living thing with my BB gun except for snails, slugs, and tomato worms.