A Shooting Gallery
This may seem off topic. but it isn’t…….In the sixties, there were no electric signs, except for neon. You either had neon, or you put up wooden signs. This left small shops like delis, hardware stores, pizza shops, etc out in the cold.
Enter the major soda companies–Coke, Pepsi, Seven-UP, RC, etc. They would make a sign for you with their logo prominently displayed. You get to show the public the name of your store, they get their logo splashed to the public.
Ever since I could remember, there was a Seven Up sign that said ‘Police Pistol Range’ about half a mile from the house right before you went through the one lane bridge to the rich town. The ‘range’ was a large gully dug out of a small hill. If you went past the gully, you would be level with the train tracks. When I was very small, we’d sometimes sit and watch a train pass; I’d wave at the conductor on the caboose. Why? Well, them, Mike!
The range seemed to be unused most of the time. But when it was in use, you would hear the shots plain as thunder. Our dog spooked; others on the block barked in outrage. You’d be playing and somebody would say ‘what the heck was that?’ You’d shrug and say ‘cops at the range’.
Looking back, it was surprising how commonplace the gunshots became; it was an early indoctrination into the violence you’d see on TV from Vietnam every night, I suppose.
The one-lane bridge was decommissioned in the mid seventies after a four lane underpass was built. The pistol range, however, stayed until the 80’s; the property behind the gully was purchased and the area paved over.
I imagined that a thousand years from now someone will excavate the area and be awestruck by the number of bullets they find in the dirt.