Welly welly welly well...
I'll start by saying that I don't think I ate a piece of meat or a vegetable that was harvested more than three miles from the tastefully laid table in the sunny kitchen of the beautiful house of our gracious host. The beef stew was like butter, the lasagna with the burnt cheese and zucchini was like chocolate, and the three grain cereal with backyard honey and whole milk was a texture and nutty flavor like nothing I've ever had before... well - not since Memorial Day Van Etten 2008, at least. Strawberry's with yogurt, maple syrup and peach liqueur sauce... in the eloquent parlance of my teen-age daughter - "omg!" I made the joke that when we aren't around, like say some general Wednesday, our hosts would be de-frosting hot dogs over the sink with a bottle of French's in one hand. But I must say, that for a city boy, to get close to where the food comes from, and to contemplate a basketful of backyard produce and home-grown beef, it makes for a long drive home to a concrete backyard and starless sky. boohoo.
To the point. We got ourselves three new IIT 3's and one IIT 4. I'm glad to see Imker get involved a bit more... step outside his busy - and I do mean busy - schedule and help out with more than just land and food - and genius. B964, my camp-fire brother, has been an asset since at least Van Etten '08, when I met him. He helped set this whole thing up and got us all together. A better State Coordinator there is NOT! Look out Pennsylvania! With b-9's ground-work, and Mooney's on-going SC assault, PA is next on the list of front-line states. And this brings us to our next two IIT 3's, two Pennsylvania Riflemen, lprgcfrank and chainsaw. Frank is already an instructor and added a lot to our discussions, bringing in the tactical training of cqb tactics with the evil black rifle, but he is very sensible and open to learning the CORRECT way to shoot. ;) He also has a couple funny stories about wearing his second amendment on his hip. Chainsaw brings a calm and eloquent understanding to the table. I see him operating in the style of kDan, that is, allowing everybody else to get it all of their chests before coming in and quietly doing it right! <:)
ALL of these guys are future Shoot Bosses.
As for our instructors. Nickle, well, I can't say enough about Nickle. It was nice to be with him at the dinner table the moment he found out the Rapid Fire AQT was back in action! New England has been vindicated. I'm glad he was there at IBC to help. I have worked with him so much that when he's not around, well, it's just so quiet... !@#) "Are you on it? You better be!"
And Dinky Dao, our intrepid Buckeye Babe with the Comm Block collection to make Max Engels proud. She was my ball and dummy partner at Ramseur 2-0-8! and each time I see her I can't help but wonder how she does everything she does for us in that little american-made sedan! (No offense, UAW) She lives in the damn thing! How many sets of brakes has she been through? And the tranny?... no offense D, but I'm not even gonna try to get another year of AS out of my ex-wife's Stratus... even if she was taking my phone calls. &) Fred's gonna have to buy me one of those Dodge Sprinters with the high roofs and the 5 cylinder Mercedes Benz diesel engines. Let's hope you've got air support, D, when that thing dies out in Montana somewhere. And O yeah, everybody, don't forget to ask Dink about Hardee's. MMM, road-fish sandwich... Can I have extra tartar sauce with that? oooh, i don't feel so well... :-[
We took to the tables on Saturday morning and covered the two-day POI with aplomb and dignity. It was easy with three experienced instructors and four experienced and attentive IIT's and I knew that it was necessary to get through these things as fast (and thoroughly) as possible, so's we could do the mock AS and get through the testing on Sunday. We had learned at Manchester IBC 1-09 what can happen if you expect to test at four o'clock. We came up with a pretty ingenious method of applying the test. Nickle, Dinky, and I sat in the office provided, each at our own desk, complete with cigars, feet-up, Billy the Singing Bass, and silver pendulum clacker balls, while each IIT in turn would step in and be grilled, congressional hearing style (when the cameras are on). This test is new and with the cryptic instructions that it is to be oral, written, open-book, and secret ballot, we figured it might be nice to have all three of us big-shot instructors there in front of the cowering IIT's in order to not only get everybody on the same page, but to tag team the unsuspecting victims like the Angry Samoans of yore. It worked well. (Here comes Nickle off the ropes, and OOH, that's gotta hurt!) And Appleseed helped me to discover yet another something about myself... I really want to be in charge of everything... O0
We had a whole mess of rifles to make (pretend) mistakes with, and blueskys (nickle's MUCH better half), got down in the muck with me and Dink and helped to demonstrate what kind of mistakes new or stubborn shooters can make. Looking at that pile of rifles on dirty moving pads is my favorite part of any IBC. They just look so happy there together - "O hey, Joe! Haven't seen you in a while. How's it goin'? Psst - what's that wierd looking .22 over there, some tarted up village hussy...?"
The hardest part of any AS event is always saying good bye, because every time I reach out my hand to do it, somebody starts talking again! ::) This time it was difficult because I had left my dog bowls back at the house... That's right, I brought my dog... And I slept in the truck with him... and he took all the blankets... and it was freezing. When he shook his fat head, his drool froze to the inside of the windows. Nothing like sleeping in your truck with five rifles, fifteen hundred rounds of 8 mm, and an 80 pound injured pit-bull that snores like a submarine captain. Nest time, I'm duct-taping his nostrils to the back of his head.
It was an honor to be there.
Imker is so modest he never said he got IIT4.
I have to agree about Chainsaw. Calm, cool and collected on the outside even when you knew he was not on the inside.
kdan,
Thanks for the kind words. I've been through training and testing before and I was very impressed with the professional and thorough instruction in the IBC. Very knowledgeable instructors (Nickle and Dinky Dao) who were all on the same page. The instruction was tag team like the testing. The simulated Appleseed tests were great blueskys being a southpaw had me all fouled up - I never saw anyone using a right handed hold with a left cheek weld before - my brain hurt!
I greatly appreciated the help of the other IIT's (b964, Chainsaw and Imker) - we were helping each other with history as we got ready for the tests.
Getting to handle the wide array of rifles was a mixed bag. THe history there was impressive with the Caracno and the Lee Endfield. I was humbled by Nickle's tests as I missed a couple - you never can be too safe and I expect more of myself. I was impressed with Dinky's Combloc collection - I haven't stepped into that world - but it's tempting. I've got to add a 10-22 to my collection - time to start thinking about a bigger safe....
You were all very patient with me helping me differentiate from the black rifle cqb techniques that are drilled into my muscle memory and proper Rifleman techniques. Nothing that can't be fixed by putting a couple thousand rounds through my 03 Springfield or Garand.
I went to my first and only official Appleseed back in 2006 at the Langhorne Rod and Gun Club in PA and I'm impressed with both the consistency and the evolution of the program. Consistency in the love of the history and our republic and in the fundamentals of shooting and marksmanship. And the evolution in the smoothness and growth in the IIT program and network of instructors and the growth in the number of shoots.
I am honored to be a part of this program and I look forward to when we're running regular programs here in southeast PA and even over in the Peoples Republic of Jersey.
All around excellent experience. Well done!
-Chainsaw
It was a whole lot easier having a group of students like the 4 we had.
As Blueskys says "a great bunch of guys".
Something we did that was different than usual was the clearing portion of the Mock Appleseed. We had a long line of rifles set up for the IIT's to clear, and there was just about everything imaginable there from AR to Carcano. We had just about every clearing issue you could imagine, including a couple of rifles the IIT's were not familiar with (with the safeties off, of course). That made the clearing portion faster, more realistic and much more detailed, like they would see at a large Appleseed. Must have been 15 or more rifles to clear, and just about everything they'll see at an Appleseed weas there (next time I'll make sure to bring one of the Mosins as well).
It's always a pleasure to work with kDan and Dinky, and it's definitely a pleasure to travel to Van Etten for Appleseed. Our hosts, Imker and Gail were, as always, great, and the food fantastic.