He swiveled his body towards the two squirrels and fired a single shot. The squirrel that was closest to him instantly became a study in overkill. As he fired the shot, my eyes turned to the squirrels, and there, the target seemed to almost sear in half. The shot, one that to this day we still consider to be lucky as hell, ripped right through the midsection of the animal, and both halves of the squirrel seemed to hop into the air, the tail and rear section spun around as it zipped through the air, while the front half seemed to just toss itself on the driveway. There was a thick spray of blood and fur that shot in a circumference from the animal, about two feet in all directions. After the two halves landed, the poor creature's head lay lifeless on the driveway, staring up at the sky.

"Woooooo-wee!" my dad yelled, as he spun towards the other target. The squirrel seemed to hesitate for a second; after all, his friend did just explode in front of his own beady little eyes. After he heard the second war cry of the boomstick man, he began to haul ass into the woods. Dad rotated his hands towards the creature, and started to pull back on the hammer.

This is where the debate of whether or not my dad had a lucky shot takes evidence against him. I still believe the first shot that crushed the first squirrel had some skill, while my brother and Dan both agree that there was no skill involved at all, that it was completely lucky. Anyway, like the gunfighters of the old west, dad began to slam the hammer back and fire as fast as he could, sliding it back with his left hand in a shuffling fashion, and pulling the trigger with his right. He managed to get all five shots off within six or seven seconds, but each shot seemed to fall either short or wide by six or seven feet. Squirrel number two managed to escape into the forest, to tell his furry friends about the naked man in the red fur with the boomstick.

Dad went over to the blown-up squirrel and did a damage assessment. After staring at the crater of gore by the bird feeder, he picked up both ends of the animal and tossed them deep into the woods. Dan and Mike were cheering loudly, and dad pointed to them as he walked back in, saying "Eh? Eh? Your dad can shoot, huh?" High fives shortly followed.

I didn't know what to say as they came back into the house. A combination of shock, awe, and a newfound sort of respect came to me after witnessing the spectacle of dad proving once and for all man's ability to conquer nature in an unnecessarily grandiose sort of way. After all, I've never seen my dad take any animal's life intentionally before. He's hunted in the past, but this was the first time in my life I saw him take pleasure in this sort of thing. He's not violent, far from it in fact, so now I was trying to fathom where this other man in the red bathrobe came from.

I decided not to make anything of it. The only thing that I decided was that if I was to ever have kids, I'd hope to be only half as cool and surprising as my dad. I couldn't pull off the briefs and undershirt look like he could, but I wouldn't mind a bathrobe and a box full of slugs while hanging out with my kids and the dude living in my shed. That just makes for an interesting Saturday morning.

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