July 15 2006

Well gang, the fourth of July holiday last week was one to remember.
It seems that members of the Range Committee for the Montrose Beer and Gun Club, in the hopes of getting the club house ready for a meeting this Fall, took a trip out to the ranges to get them ready.
The plan was to rebuild the black powder locker that had blown up some months ago, and had included fifty cubic yards of dirt to fill in the crater left by the explosion.
In order to celebrate the reconstruction of the locker and the Fourth of July, a couple kegs of Shiner and St. Arnold’s Amber were brought along, and a fine mess of fireworks.
Well, the reconstruction went just fine, and the locker was even stocked with a hundred pounds of fresh black powder.
In the interest of safety, the new locker was painted bright red and the front door was open a little so that when the paint dried it wouldn’t dry the door shut.
Everybody stood back just as pleased as punch, or beer, as was the case, and walked back to the club house to soak up some suds, and prepare the skyrockets for when it got dark.
The last skyrocket to get lit was the really big one.
As the head of the Range Committee leaned down to light the fuse with his cigar, the beer got to him a little, and he bumped the skyrocket a little, and it leaned over a little, and the preferred trajectory of the monster became a horizontal one.
"Isn’t that going in the direction of the black powder locker?" someone asked.
"Yeah." Said another.
"Did anyone shut the front door of the black powder locker?" asked another.
Now, at any other time, everybody would have looked around at each other at this juncture, but no one could take their eyes off the rocket. And no one said a word.
Well, the rocket found the open door alright, and when it went off, so did all that black powder.
The leader of the work party said, "It was the damnedess thing you ever saw!"
He also said that anybody who has fifty cubic yards or so of fill dirt laying around should contact Club Headquarters.
What is it with these guys?

Till next week
Helga Biermeister
Secretary