| From
a historical perspective, the sling preceded the slingshot,
but for me it was the other way around. I had a homemade
slingshot a long time before a sling. I cannot remember
who introduced the sling to me, though perhaps the deed
was handled by some of my cousins or by boys in my neighborhood.
Slingshots
were easy to make using simple tools and readily available
materials. A small tree limb with a Y-shaped branch
would form the handle and arms of the slingshot and
could be carved crudely or handsomely, depending upon
one's skill. A small patch of leather was needed to
hold the projectile or ammunition being shot, and such
a piece of leather could be formed from the tongue of
an old pair of leather shoes. The only other critical
piece needed was the rubber bands that connected the
leather pouch to each arm of the slingshot, and since
those were the days when automotive tires required rubber
inner tubes, the availability of used inner tubes was
high.
While
not every family saved old inner tubes, enough folks
did to allow plenty of material for plenty of slingshots.
Once the rubber strips were cut and tied to the arms
of the slingshot and to the leather pouch, a youngster
was ready for hours of fun. A few fortunate youngsters
might have had access to steel ball bearings to shoot
in their slingshots, but most of us country boys used
"gravel rocks."
Slingshots
are not much fun to shoot, unless they are targeted
at something. In my neighborhood, tin cans, cats, birds,
and some dogs made for interesting shooting. I don't
recall ever hitting a living thing with a slingshot,
but I had plenty of fun trying.
A
sling is a less complicated device than a slingshot.
Like the slingshot, it has a leather pouch to hold the
projectile, but its power is not derived from stretched
rubber bands. The sling is basically a pouch centered
between two cords or narrow strips of leather. Swung
rapidly overhead or alongside the user, centrifugal
forces provide the sling its power, and that power can
be lethal.
Though
the sling is a simple weapon, it was made famous in
the battle between David and Goliath of Biblical fame.
In the days that I attempted to harness the power of
the sling, I never developed the skills mentioned by
David as he defended his abilities to slay the lion
and the bear with a sling. With my skills, I don't think
I could have come close to wounding either beast, let
alone burying a stone in the forehead of a giant on
my first attempt. However, as surely as the Lord was
with David when he battled the Philistine giant, he
was with this writer many years ago involving an incident
with a sling.
I
would have been around the age of twelve or thirteen
at the time. The incident happened as Keith Gillespie
and I were honing our respective "slinging"
skills. I was in a neighbor's yard, slightly in an uphill
line from where Keith stood on the street below. The
lines of his sling became tangled as he released one
of them to send his rock flying. His intended target
was in a direction away from both of us. The rock was
errantly hurled directly toward me with blinding speed.
I'm not sure I saw it coming, but I felt it as it struck
my chin. It hit with a thud, and I still remember it
took a minute or so for me to feel the pain, as though
the nerves in my face were too stunned to transmit the
signals to my brain.
I
also remember being scared I would have a disfiguring
scar. It was not that I had a pretty face, but with
all the other insecurities of my early pubescent years,
I didn't want to be nicknamed "scar face,"
too. Fortunately, the facial cut produced was less than
a half-inch, and the ensuing scar slowly slipped below
my chin as I grew. No one ever had reason to call me
"scar face," and as far as I can remember,
I never truthfully explained to Mom how I cut my chin.
Mom
was fortunate to have raised my older brother past his
first few years, as he was prone toward self-inflicted
injury, and her fretting over "Freddie" would
carry over into the lives of all four of her children.
Had Mom known about the "sling-thing," she'd
have worried herself sick, and, thereafter, every time
I wanted to play somewhere I would have been warned
about the deadly potential of slings and would probably
have been prevented from participating in a lot of boyhood
outings.
I
may not have had much sense in my youth, but I had enough
to know I was lucky. I came out of the sling incident
smelling like a rose. I could have easily lost an eye,
a few of my permanent teeth, or my life, for that matter.
I did not realize it at the time, but I have come to
acknowledge my luck was not really luck at all. Rather
it was something akin to divine intervention, or perhaps
it was intervention by an angelic being that thwarted
the course of a rock that might have otherwise produced
a disaster in my life. You have the right to believe
differently, but that's my story, and I'm sticking to
it.
-
Wayne L. Carter
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