Several years ago I ran into my old crony, Tim.  It had been more than ten years since we had last seen each other.  The very first thing he said was, "Hey, do you remember that time when that time went missing?"

If there had been any uninvolved third party around to hear that question, I'm sure it would have sounded strange.  Of course I remembered it, and said so.  In fact, I had thought to myself several times that if I ever saw Tim again, I would ask him the same thing.  He had just beaten me to it by a few seconds.

"Did you ever try to tell anyone?" he asked.

"Yeah, a couple of times.  But they thought I was nuts or just making it up, so I stopped talking about it."

"I told a lot of people," Tim replied.  "They all thought I was nuts, too."

---

During most of my life, a friend of our family had owned a ranch of about 500 acres, about 20 minutes drive from where I lived.  It was roughly divided into about 200 mostly cleared acres in front, and about 300 densely forested acres in back.  Several years ago he sold that back 300 and purchased an additional 50 or so acres in front, so he still has about 250 acres there.  This is where our home-made rifle range is, and I still dove hunt there sometimes.  During my teen years, we did all of our deer hunting in the back 300.

There was a tank (or pond, to some people) in front, not far from the entrance gate, and another tank way in the back of the back 300.  Neither tank had ever been stocked with fish, they were just there for the cattle to drink from.  The front tank was connected, when it rained enough, by a series of small feeder creeks with the Ecleto Creek, which in turn is connected to the Cibolo Creek.  Somehow a few bass had managed to work their way through all those creeks into that tank, and we occasionally caught a few out of there.  The back tank, although it wasn't connected with anything really, had somehow managed to become packed with bluegills.  Maybe someone in decades past had thrown a few in there and they stuck, I don't know.  But we had lots of fun fishing for bluegills there.  I had even built my own ultra-light rig to fish for them, using the tiniest bass lures I could find.  My best bluegill-killer was a Mepps #0 with a silver spinner and a white tail.  I also had a very small top-water "popper" that was colored like a leopard frog which got the bluegills all the time.  Both tanks were also infested with turtles, which provided me with many hours of target practice with my .22.

One Saturday afternoon in 1980, Tim and I decided to go fishing at the back tank.  Our time there was unremarkable.  We spent a few hours catching fish and occasionally taking a shot at a turtle.

That night, the animated TV-movie version of The Return of the King was going to be shown at 7:00 PM (it was released in 1980).  We had decided we'd pack up and head back home around 5:00.  This would give us plenty of time to get home, shower and eat, and kick back and get ready for the movie to begin.  So at five o'clock, we did just that.

The road from the back tank to the front 200 was mostly a meandering path that was little more than a double-wide cow trail.  It wound through the thick forest of oak, hickory and blackjack and in a couple of places we even had to reach out the windows and push limbs aside so they wouldn't hit the extended side mirrors on my dad's old '69 Datsun pick-up.  Eventually it hit a stretch that was long and straight and led us out of the forest.  Having driven that route countless times, I knew that it took about 15 minutes to get from the back tank to the front gate.  During this entire drive, we were under cover of the trees.  As we emerged from the forest into the open fields of the front 200, I said something like, "Why is it getting dark so soon?"

"Alan," said Tim in an odd tone of voice, "what time did your watch say when we left the tank back there?"

"Five o'clock."

"That's what mine said.  What does yours say now?"

I glanced at my watch.  It was 6:45.  We both had a serious WTF moment.  Somehow, a 10-minute drive had taken us nearly two hours.

In another 5 minutes we had reached the front gate.  We locked everything up, I stopped at Tim's house to drop him off on my way home, and I finally got home around 7:15.

I remember all these times and numbers well because something had happened that neither of us could explain and it made an impression on us that has lasted to this day.  It's been a while now since I've last seen Tim, but I'm sure he hasn't forgotten it, either.

We speculated on the way home.  What could have happened?  It was so odd and disconcerting that for a little while I started doubting my own perceptions.  When I did get home, I went inside and immediately stared curiously at the wall clock to see if it agreed with my watch.  Of course, it did.  My dad noticed, and asked me what was wrong.  I told him what had happened, and he just shrugged and said I looked at my watch wrong or something.

And that was the usual response.  But if that had happened, we had both looked at our watches wrong.  Not only that, but we would have had to have looked at them wrong in the the same way to both "mistakenly" think it was 5:00 when we started home.

During the next few years, before life sent us on our separate paths, we talked it over several times.  Driving home from a day of fishing or a night of 'coon hunting, there would be a lull in conversation, and one of us would ask the same old question:  So, what do you think happened?

---

"So," said Tim, "what do you think happened?"

"I don't know," I answered.  It was the only answer I ever had.

At The Snubnose Files.

Range Evaluation:  Ruger SP-101 with 3 1/16" Barrel by Stephen A. Camp,

...and...

The Ruger SP-101 by George (mad ogre) Hill.

Thanks to Syd for tipping me by email.


UPDATE:  Posted this for my 357 Magnum category as reference.  The SP101 is my usual carry gun.

Check this out...





I won't say where this is, because there's a remote possibility that that could get me in trouble.  But this is the kind of stuff I see.  This is a huge pile of garbage, scrap metal and lumber with screws and nails sticking out in all directions that I had to climb across.  Top pic is on the way in, bottom pic is on the inside after I made the journey.

I get a see a lot of things in the city that many other people never do, and a lot of what I see disgusts me.

If our corporate safety guy knew I did this kind of thing, he'd poop his breeches, for sure.

FYI:

Gun Owners of America has posted their End-of-Year Report.

Included are a couple of reminders why the BATF(E) must be eliminated.