Guns and Glory

continued

The fantasy dissolves completely with one look at the targets: old bowling pins donated from area alleys.

The league has hosted monthly bowling-pin pistol shoots every summer for longer than anyone can remember. Mike Cowhy has been running them for more than ten years. Cowhy reaches up to release some of the water that has accumulated in the tent canopies set up to keep both the participants and their pistols dry. "We're getting too hard-core," he says with a smile.

Despite the rain, more than a dozen men and women have shown up to compete for the best time: participants pay $5 to shoot down six sets of five pins each. The pins are set on shelves roughly fifteen paces from the firing line. A shot timer reports results of each set to a scorekeeper. "It's a way to add pressure," says Cowhy. "You could be the best shooter in the world, but when that timer goes off, it's a different thing." Last summer, Cowhy's best time for a five-pin set was 2.45 seconds.