me no like planning and goal setting

me no like planning and goal setting.

fiction
edward w pritchard

After Rachel and I got engaged her Father and other of her family members had several conversations with me about the lack of planning and goal setting in my daily life. When Rachel who I care a lot about asked me why I didn't like to plan, I told her the story about the crows from my childhood. Because of the crows I don't use planning and goal setting methods.

When I was eight years old, my Mother went to Chicago with my Father on family business.  During their absence I was to stay with the Burton family next door. Mr. Burton had raised three boys now grown and he and his wife ran a small farm and orchard well known locally for the apples. My Mother had grown up in the house we lived in and knew the Burton's well and trusted them. It was decided I would stay with the Burton's while my parents were in Chicago.

We were eating breakfast when I told Mr. Burton I had never shot a rifle. Mr. Burton was shocked; how could my Dad not have taught me to hunt or shoot? While I was at school, Mr. Burton made preparations to teach me the technique of shooting by designing a small shooting gallery in the backyard near the fence leading to the orchard. 

Mr. Burton met me as I got off the bus from school that Tuesday night and handed me a slim twenty two rifle. I was lead back to the fence by the orchard where Mr. Burton had tied four live crows to the top of the wood fence post using red twine and green wire to strongly secure the bird's feet to the fence rail. As we walked up I could hear the terrible squawking the birds made.

Thereafter, each day after school Mr. Burton would set a goal of what percent of the crows I would have to kill on the first shot. Eventually, I was supposed to hit all of the seven crows he had secured to the fence first shot. It wasn't  the shooting of the secured birds that is so bad a memory for me; it was cutting the dead crows off the fence with wire cutters that I still remember about the experience. Sometimes the birds would fly about during the confusion of the shooting and the green wire on their legs would get so tangled that I would have to snip the bird's legs rather than the wire to get the dead or injured crows off Mr. Burton's fence rail. Each night for a couple of weeks after I shot and then cut down the birds; my job would be to spray down the fence rail with the blue hose while Mr. Burton and I planned how to improve tomorrows performance. We would talk about it some more at supper and my goal of tomorrows percentage of first shot kills would be written on a yellow tablet near the telephone.

 Looking back on that experience is why me no like planning and goal setting I told my finance Rachel.