Fred Minnick

When I was 8 years old, I walked through my family’s Choctaw, Oklahoma, backwoods with a single shot .22, scanning the trees for squirrels. This gun had been passed down two generations in my family and the sights had become crooked, so catching a moving squirrel became a guessing game and I missed more than I hit. Nonetheless, I returned home to grandpa’s with a couple squirrels after every adventure.