OWD, when describing my early experience at the Drifton, PA pigeon ring, I had forgotten a coincidental fact about my first experience there. I have related this as a wordy description of my "gun related" childhood on another site, but I will synopsize it here. My Dad paid my entry into a ten bird one shot race, ten dollars with a junior exemption (I was about 14) from the otherwise mandatory purse. At the end of the race, my score was a mediocre (but impressive to me) seven of ten killed in the ring. When I left the ring, one of the onlookers pressed a bill into my hand and congratulated me on my shooting. That was my first experience with the gambling tradition of PA flyer shooting. He had apparently won a few bucks on my fair to middling shooting. However, the most interesting thing is that I was shooting my favorite 1912 W&C Scott 16 gauge ejector, #90,362 as I remember it. It was a little 5 3/4 pound 26" gun that never failed to put 90% of its soft sixes into a 30" circle at 40 yards. Unfortunately, the little Scott has been gone for about 30 years. It was traded at Allentown, probably in the mid seventies. I wonder who owns it today? It has a plaque inletted into the stock near the butt describing it as a first place trophy for a race of the Corinthian Yacht Club of Philadelphia in 1912, the boat, The Tomboy. The hunt is on.
