6/18/2007

Do you know why sight alignment is more important than sight picture? (with open sights on a pistol). I will write what I learned about it as taught to me by Uncle Bob (Bob Chow). Or as he used to say, I learn you.

My brother worked in Bob's gun shop on Mission street in San Francisco. Uncle Bob had him polishing metal for a year before he could actual work on any guns.

When Bob met my father back in the mid 1940's, my father was a rifle shooter. Bob walked up to him while my dad was laying on his shooting mat. "Why don't you get up off the ground, stand on your own two feet, and shoot like a man!" My father got rid of his rifles and became a dedicated pistol shooter.

Uncle Bob and Auntie Bobbie were advid tennis players as well as shooters. They used to play tennis in the 1950's with my parents every weekend for quite a while. My brother and I would have to hang out around the tennis courts until they got done. Tennis is boring and takes a long time!

My father and Uncle Bob lost touch for some time, but on Bob Chow's 90th birthday party, my father ended up being the surprise guest. They grilled Bob with some questions to see if he could guess who this person was. When my father came out, it was quite a reunion. If I hadn't started shooting it might not have ever happened.

This weekend our club team, a humble team from the Sonoma county town of Sebastopol, is going to compete in the Bob Chow Memorial pistol match at the San Francisco Police range. This is one of the nicest ranges that I have ever shot at! What will be special is that my father will be there to see Bobbie Chow, and he has never been to a pistol match with me. He's 84 and still pretty spry. No, he's not going to shoot, but just having him there at a pistol match will be full circle, especially at the Bob Chow memorial match!