Gifts that last a lifetime

As a boy growing up on the edge of a southwestern desert I took an early - and seemingly out-of-place - interest in hunting and fishing.

A friend who was similarly afflicted and I would take our Red Ryder BB guns out into a weedy field and shoot grasshoppers.

When the hoppers wouldn't hold still, we took up wing shooting. Ever tried to shoot a grasshopper on the wing with a BB gun? We'd waste an afternoon and a dime's worth of BB's for two or three grasshoppers apiece.

That first BB gun was waiting under the tree, unwrapped, on my eighth Christmas.

My dad told me the BB gun was, in fact, a rea...