Cowboys, Cowgirls, and Couch Potatoes...

Many of us grew up in an age where cowboys like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood were our heroes, Shane didn't really die (or did he) as he road off into the sunset, and spending the afternoon in the fields and woods playing cowboys and indians was just another way of having fun.

That was long before the politically corrected society decided that using your finger and thumb to make a six-shooter could get a five year-old expelled from school and hauled away in hand-cuffs.

Well, playing cowboys and cowgirls is now a significant past-time for many folks with the ever-growing popularity of S.A.S.S. and other shooting sports which offer a far more modern version good guys and bad guys.

With a big, back-slappin' thanks to the likes of Coyote Mike and Billy Goat Bruce... the last couple of years, we've been offering our hundred or so 4H Shooting Sports kids a chance to step into the old west where men were men, gals were gals, and hammers down on empty chambers reminded them that gun safety is the law around this here town.

There's no room for video-gamin' couch potatoes 'round here... when the steel stares you down, the only thing you can do is wait for the "beep" and send plenty of lead down-range.  And folks, let me tell you... this new generation of "everybody wins" falls to the side like spent brass, 'cause everyone here has good, ol' safe fun... but those young cowboys definitely want to know who was the best.

Last night, those cowboys found out just who was the best... a cowgirl!  Yep, don't ever let those fellas be thinkin' they've got one up on a gal, especially a farm-grown, country gal with a gun in her hand.

Sorry boys, when the smoke clears and the gals have cleaned your clocks... there ain't no whining allowed.  So the best advice I can give parents who barely see their kids between the one-hundred and forty-six soccer games and the time they're spending textin' and video-gamin'... maybe it's time your kids quit exercising their textin', gamin' thumbs and start exercising their trigger fingers.

'Cause a trip with the family to the shooting range will surely separate out the Cowboys, Cowgirls, and Couch Potatoes...