As we skip through the years, we join young John Allen on his sixth birthday. Little Johnny A, as everyone called him, was terribly excited as he was expecting the box of bb’s to go with the bb gun he had gotten as a Christmas gift. Robert, as a joke, thought it’d be funny to give the boy his first gun on Christmas morning, but not the bb’s. Elizabeth, upon learning of this, coldly reminded Robert that he ‘was not funny’. Anyway, it was a proud moment for father and son the morning of little Johnny A’s birthday. The two spent the morning standing-up empty soup cans just to shoot them down. Robert taught little Johnny A everything about how to safely load and handle his new gun. Robert felt proud the moment he left little Johnny A alone in the front yard shooting cans. He quickly downplayed Elizabeth’s concerns over the boy being too young to have a gun.
Meanwhile, little Johnny A was shooting down soup can after soup can with great accuracy. As all young boys do, however, little Johnny A attention began to wonder. He started to point his gun at other things and pretend to shoot them. First, it was the imaginary bad guys hiding behind the trees. Next, it was the imaginary Indians behind the fence. And then there was the huge grizzly bear sleeping on the porch (otherwise known as Butch, the family dog). Little Johnny A aimed directly at the grizzly’s head, making sure to do everything his father taught him – cock one eye, slowly take in a breath, exhale, and then shoot. “BAM,” he yelled as he pretended to shoot the bear. Something went wrong, however. Without realizing it, when he made the “BAM” noise he jerked the gun back causing him to pull the trigger.
Within a split second, the grizzly bear (otherwise known as Butch, the family dog,) was shot directly in the eye. The poor animal made a horrific noise causing little Johnny A to start crying immediately. The entire family frantically ran out of the house to find out what happened. It took Robert ten minutes to finally capture the shot grizzly bear (otherwise known as Butch, the family dog) and another thirty-seconds to figure out just ‘what the hell happened’. It was another two years before little Johnny A saw his bb gun again. The grizzly bear, by the way, thus became known as Butch, the family’s one-eyed dog.
