The View from the Pits  I understand now why people wear ear plugs when they're working in the pits. Words of wisdom: as bullets fly at supersonic speeds above you, barking almost as loud as rifle fire at the firing line, those little plugs come in handy.  There really is a first time for everything. Saturday at the Garand Match was my first time in the "pits"-- working behind the firing line along a narrow concrete catwalk raising and lowering targets. I chose "The View from the Pits" as the title for this article because there isn't one, unless you consider looking straight up or immediately behind the targets. Lucky for me it was a beautiful day, my first day in the pits, 80 degrees in August with a breeze coming off the lake. A hundred-plus men were lined up on the catwalk, preparing for the next relay to begin. NRA officials kept walking by, counting the number of men on each target, stopping abruptly each time they reached where I was stationed, recounting, then noticing the press pass I wore. Maybe that's how I got the nickname "spare parts." There was a port-o-john several feet out from the catwalk, a place which I've learned people go only in the direst of need. There was a ding in the fiberglass door, about head level. That was reason enough to follow the pit officers' demands that everyone in the pits stay on the catwalk next to the berm while shots were being fired.  Entirely at random, I ended up standing between four men from Pennsylvania, all of whom were taking part in the Garand Match for the first time. The group included Bill Rude ("just like impolite"), who brought junior smallbore rifle teams to Camp Perry in the 1960s and 70s, but was only now getting around to competing at the National Matches now. There was also Earl, the apparent leader--"some dummie named me said 'let's go to this thing.'" Then there was Joe, who claimed to be the reincarnation of Benny Hill, and Jeff, the youngest of the bunch at 34 and also apparently the sanest. Of course, we spent most of our time looking up, and running commentary on the faceless marksman who was shooting at our target. We also found out what the golf tees were for. In fact, it seemed much more practical to be using golf tees to mark rapid fire shot hole locations on targets than to hold little white balls in the grass.  There were also the "Earlisms." Per Earl, "I learned I brought 6 bottles of water for nothin'. Somebody said if you want to do good, you gotta drink water. I hate water." In response to Joe, who was giving him a hard time about raising his target, the Earlism "If I got it any higher, it'd be in Canada." On Jeff, the youngest in the bunch,"he's runnin' over bridges I walked over 40 years ago." Giving Joe a hard time about putting up a new target--"C'mon Lou, gee whiz, ya ain't hangin' wall paper." Well, he really didn't say "gee whiz," but this is a family publication.

The view Earl At the end of a couple of hours, your head actually gets stuck in this position More view