We would shoot each other with BB guns. The two rules were that one couldn’t pump the gun more than five times or shoot someone above the waist.

Chickenhawks, blackbirds, barnswallows, bluejays, finches.

Unlucky hunters, coming through the fields in front of the house, would shoot two of our cats, out of boredom or frustration or both.

There was a game called The Stein Game, in which one had to toss a loop onto a pole to win a glass, a stein, a tankard.

By the way, does kissing a fourth cousin count?

In another game, which involved shooting moving wooden ducks, you could win mirrors with album covers burned onto them.

One kid I hit high in the shoulder, the pellet sticking under the skin, blood coming down the blade, him jumping around frantically from the pain. “What the fuck?”

Like Ozzy Osbourne’s Diary of a Madman.

My father mentions barncats that were missing ears from frostbite.

The Octopus, The Moon Bounce, The Twistawhirl.

She told me to feel her leg, which I did, which caused her to ask me if I liked that.