Last Thursday, I shot my great-grandfather’s old double-barreled shotgun for the first time. On Friday, my brother-in-law and I hiked the trails at Roland Cooper State Park in Camden and on Saturday I watched the “Iron Bowl” from the press box at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa. What follows are a few more details about all three of those experiences.
BUCKET LIST ITEM No. 525: Shoot my great-grandfather’s old double-barreled shotgun
My great-grandfather Sidney Stacey died when I was a small boy and at that time I was his only great-grandchild. He was a lifelong hunter and outdoorsman, and he left his old double-barreled shotgun to me. For most of my life this gun has sat in a closet, unused, and I’d never even fired it until last Thursday.
The shotgun is a 12-guage, side-by-side model manufactured by the Central Arms Co. of St. Louis, Mo. From what I gather, shotguns like this were commonly sold in catalogs and in small town hardware stores across the country. I don’t know how old my shotgun is, but it is stamped with a 1915 patent designation, which indicates that at the most, it’s not yet 100 years old.
This particular shotgun sat in my father’s closet until I moved out on my own, and it had an ominous reputation. My father claimed to have shot it only once years ago and when he accidentally pulled both triggers at once, it bloodied his nose. My brothers had also both shot it and had similar stories to tell about the shotgun’s stout recoil.
I mentioned to my brother John a few weeks ago that I’d never fired the gun and that I might try to shoot it for the first time over the Thanksgiving holidays. John offered to bring a skeet trap to my grandmother’s house, where we planned to have a family get-together for Thanksgiving. He and my cousin Jamie Lowe also supplied boxes of clay skeet for the trap, and almost every male in the family old enough to drive showed up with a shotgun (some with more than one).
In all, I fired 25 shells through the old shotgun, and to me, the gun didn’t kick any harder than any other shotgun I’ve ever fired, even when I pulled both triggers at once. I realize that this has a lot to do with the type shells I was shooting on Thursday, which was a $5.97 box of shells that I bought at the Monroeville Wal-Mart the day before. For the record, I was shooting 2-3/4 inch, 7-1/2 shot Winchester Super Speed XTRA game loads, which have a velocity of 1,350-feet per second.
My young son was most impressed with the skeet shooting last Thursday, and I look forward to the day when I can pass on this old shotgun to him. I like the thought of the gun getting passed down to future generations, and I can only imagine it ending up in the hands of some future Peacock that I’ll never even meet.
No. 485: Hike the trails at Roland Cooper State Park in Camden
On Friday morning, my brother-in-law, Dr. Kenny Day of Athens, and I drove up to Roland Cooper State Park in Camden and hiked the trails there. I’ve wanted to do this ever since I read about them in Joe Cuhaj’s excellent 2007 book, “Hiking Alabama: A Guide to Alabama’s Greatest Hiking Adventures” (3rd Edition).
Roland Cooper State Park is located along the banks of the 22,000-acre William “Bill” Danelly Reservoir, which is formed by a dam on the Alabama River, south of Selma. This reservoir is also commonly referred to as Miller’s Ferry. The park itself consists of 236 acres and includes a nine-hole golf course. In all, the park has two hiking trails – the Chipmunk Trail and the Lakeside Trail – and they’re about two miles long altogether.
We tackled the Chipmunk Trail first because it was closest to where we parked. Even though it was the Friday after Thanksgiving, there were still a fair number of people at the park. In fact, while on the Chipmunk Trail we encountered an older gentleman riding a bike along the trail.
That trail put us out near the clubhouse at the golf course, and we dropped in for directions to the Lakeside Trail’s trailhead. The nice lady inside gave us a map and told us how to get to the trailhead. She also mentioned that the Lakeside Trail isn’t maintained by the park staff any more, but we were welcome to give it a go if we wanted.
We left the clubhouse, where there were already a few early morning golfers on hand, and found the trailhead after a short walk. Like the lady said, this trail isn’t as maintained as the Chipmunk Trail, but it wasn’t impassable. The best thing about it was that it offers hikers a very nice view of the reservoir.
One thing that Kenny and I asked ourselves on the way out of the park was – “Who was Roland Cooper?” According to the Encyclopedia of Alabama, the park was named after William Roland Cooper, a politician from Camden who served in the Alabama State Senate. The Danelly Reservoir was named after a former Wilcox County probate judge.
Kenny and I enjoyed our short trip to Roland Cooper. It was easy to get to, the weather was great, and we made it home in time to enjoy a post-Thanksgiving Day lunch with our families.
No. 593: Watch an Iron Bowl from the press box at Bryant-Denny Stadium
In the state of Alabama, there is no bigger sporting event than the annual Iron Bowl, which features the biggest rivalry in all of college football – Alabama vs. Auburn. Saturday’s game, which was played in Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, was the 77th Iron Bowl. Alabama, ranked No. 2 in the nation, went on to win, 49-0, giving Alabama their second-biggest win ever over the Tigers. Alabama now leads the all-time series 42-34-1.
I’ve been to more than a few Iron Bowls. I’ve watched them from the stands as a fan and as a student, and I’ve also shot a number of them as a sideline photographer. This past Saturday though marked the first time that I’d ever gotten a press box pass for an Iron Bowl, and it was a new, fun experience seeing the game from arguably the best seats in the house.
This was kind of a big deal for me because, growing up, I never thought I’d ever see an Iron Bowl anywhere else but on TV. As a youngster growing up in rural Southwest Alabama, my perception was that getting to go to something like go to the Alabama-Auburn game in person was something that rich, important people got to do, certainly not someone like me from Frisco City. Hell, as best as I can remember, I was out of high school the first time that I ever set foot in Tuscaloosa.
In the interest of full disclosure, Saturday wasn’t the first time I’d ever set foot in the press box at Bryant-Denny. When you get a sideline pass as a photographer, you are allowed to go up to take advantage of the food they have set out in the hospitality area, which is right behind the press box seats. I’d been up there looking around a few times in the past, but had never watched an entire game from up there.
Saturday was also the first time I’d been up there since the completion of recent renovations to the stadium. To say that it was nice would be an understatement. There were also a fair number of “celebrities” up there on Saturday, including Alabama’s governor, sports radio personality Paul Finebaum, broadcasters Gary Danielson and Verne Lundquist and radioman Eli Gold, aka, “The Voice of the Crimson Tide.”
The seats in the press box are arranged in three tiers, and your seat is assigned according to who you work for. My seat was in the middle section – Row B, Seat 15 – which put me between reporters from the Northport Gazette and the Wetumpka Herald. Dozens of other newspapers, television and radio stations were represented in the press box as well, and it was interesting to see how they operated during the game.
Another interesting note about Saturday’s game was that it was the last for Gene Chizik as Auburn’s head coach. The following day, on Sunday, Auburn fired Chizik, who lead the Tigers to a 3-9 record this season, including an 0-8 showing in conference play. This year’s performance by Auburn was somewhat surprising. They usually field a competitive team, and they won the BCS national title just two years ago.
Special thanks to the Alabama Press Association, which provided our newspaper with a press box pass to Saturday’s game and to my publisher Robert Bozeman, who allowed me to use the pass. Robert could have used the pass himself, but he let me go instead, which was mighty nice of him.
In the end, I enjoyed scratching three more items off my bucket list. How many of you out there have any interesting shotgun or Iron Bowl stories to tell? How many of you have hiked the trails at Roland Cooper State Park? What did you think about them? Let us know in the comments section below.
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