One Brain's journey

Approximately 45 years ago a passion that had enriched my life and gave it meaning came to an end. Last Sunday, quite deliberately, I chose to revisit that passion to see what would happen.

Usually, this blog is about neuroplasticity and working memory but the overall theme is about the journey I have been on to understand my brain and how it works. It is with this greater theme in mind that I write this post. Beginning around the time I was 12 years old I had an all consuming interest in guns. That interest, or more correctly that passion was at first kindled by a regular birthday present from my father–our yearly visit to the Sportsman’s Show in Toronto in March to look and talk with manufacturers (Winchester, Remington, Browning, Mossberg, Savage) about their guns. My father was rather distant and we rarely did much together. Looking back now it probably was largely because as a dedicated bank employee, he had little free time. But the Sportsman’s Show was one event we regularly connected through and I loved him for it. It was a different era back then. If I was growing up now I’m sure my parents would have discouraged this passion but they not only allowed they encouraged it. My graduation present from public school from them was a Winchester 22 caliber slide-action rifle and I used it every Saturday morning for two years to shoot targets with a friend at a range in the basement of York Armories in Toronto. In high school, I joined the rifle club and also shot once a week in the basement of the school with Lee Enfield 303 cal. rifles converted to 22 cal. I joined the Army Cadets to get a chance to shoot more guns and the summer, after my first year in high school, I went to Central Command Cadet Camp where we fired Lee Enfields using 303 caliber cartridges and the Bren light machine gun (same caliber). After my second year in high school I joined the student militia and got to fire the Canadian Forces new assault rifle–the FN C1 on ranges near Niagara-on-the-Lake. I ended up as Commanding Officer of my cadet corps and a Bombardier (Corporal) in the Artillery Militia. The artillery regiment was a medium one and they had really big guns–155mm howitzers. In my first year in university I joined the Canadian Officer Training Corps and went off to train at the Armored Corps School at Base Borden north of Toronto that first summer. We spent a lot of time on ranges learning to operate every weapon an ordinary front-line infantry soldier would come across.

But something happened at this point. I got discouraged. For reasons I won’t go into here I decided I wanted none of it–not the army, not the guns, not the career in the military and I quit before that training that summer was complete and asked to be discharged. I let the passion die. It was different times by then. The Vietnam war was just beginning to fill headlines and there was a general feeling, which still predominates, that guns kill people and therefore were bad. I really have nothing to say about this debate now. This post is about passion not politics but at the point I left Base Borden and eventually went back to my second year in university, I had a sour taste in my mouth about the military and about guns.
There was only one weapon that I did not get to train with that summer at Borden–the standard sidearm of the Canadian military at the time–the Browning 9mm automatic pistol.

As part of the exploration of my brain’s journey I, and a friend, decided to try our hand at pistol shooting and were invited to come last Sunday to a range used by the Forest Hill Revolver Club. As we were being briefed on range safety and operation of a 22 cal. target pistol made available by our host, I felt my brain stirring with old memories. I was invited to pick up the weapon and shown how to hold and fire it and then we stepped onto the range and into a vacant firing position and I heard the noise of pistols being discharged around me and the smell of gun smoke and felt like I had come home. I did okay with the target pistol. I scored 74. Not bad considering the 45 year gap. I guess our host was encouraged by my performance and leaned over to ask, “Would you like to try something larger.” I did and he produced a larger caliber automatic pistol, loaded it and handed it to me. I fired 10 rounds finding it much more difficult that the smaller caliber pistol I had just used. It wasn’t till I stepped back to let my companion shoot that she asked what it was. Our host said, “It’s a 9mm Browning automatic pistol.” I was home. All the sensations combined with the sense of completion at firing the Browning pistol that I had missed training with at Borden all those years ago …it all just felt right.  I do pay attention to signs and as if just firing the Browning was not enough some how the pistol had deposited a 9mm shell casing in my pocket which I discovered when I stopped at a convenience store on the way home and pulled out my change.  There it was amongst my change much to the alarm of the clerk behind the counter.  In order to get there it would have had to bounce at least twice after being ejected from the pistol.

I will keep you posted.