I would hope that when it's my turn to sit with the graybeards at any kind of match, I could be like the guys & gals that let me shoot my first Cowboy Action match. This is another long one, but nearly 20 years have passed and this is the first opportunity I've encountered where sharing it seems relevant to an existing discussion.
It's important to note that at that time, nearly all of what little meaningful shooting experience I had, had been conducted in boyhood on Ohio farmland with the 20 gauge SXS my Grandpa gave me or a borrowed .22, or using government issued weapon systems in military service. As an adult I had also done CCW courses, a bit of hunting, infrequent defensive pistol training, and of course some public range sight-ins and a little private land plinking with friends. But I had never been involved with civilian shooting disciplines on any kind of organized basis before deciding to check out "Cowboy Action Shooting."
I showed up early for the new shooter safety class. Newly married on enlisted pay with a car payment and the ink still wet on my first mortgage, I basically rolled pennies for gas to get to the range that day. I arrived in a $3 thrift shop "Indiana Jones" hat, street jeans, one of my Dad's old flannel shirts and some rubber-soled Rocky brand Wellingtons covered in concrete splatter from moonlighting with a sidewalk contractor. I expected to have to repeat the excuse all day: "First time, sorry, this is the best I can do, just here to watch & learn the ropes, not planning to shoot the match." I figured they'd take my check and send me home with my own new copy of the rules book and a warning against coming back until I'd read it cover to cover and could comply with it in spirit and letter. I had read up enough to know my stock Stevens 20 gauge was legal, as were my Win 94 .44 Mag carbine with the peep sight removed, and my wife's Single Six .32 H&R with fixed sights - using factory-loaded lead RNFP .44 Special and .32 S&W Long "plinking" ammo. But since I didn't have the second revolver needed for most stages (or even a holster for the first), I had pretty much just brought them in order to subject my meager collection to critique after the match, and maybe punch some paper if there was daylight left after all the CAS folks had cleared the range.
Instead, I saw men & women alike digging into their car trunks, truck boxes & gear totes; before I knew it, I was dressed for success as a Spaghetti Western extra in loaner gunleather, with a new temp SASS member card, and an experienced shooter hanging onto me like a dance coach through the mass safety brief, stage walk-throughs, and live fire stages all day. Somebody hung his spare pair of .45 LC Vaqueros on me and kept shoving fresh ammo into the cartridge loops on my borrowed belt between stages. I used my own ammo in my own rifle, but I don't even think I shot my own shotshells that day. At no point was I ever left wondering where to go, or what to do next, or how to do it correctly.
The only comments about my hat (other than a tiny bit of good-natured ribbing) were that I should affix a string because some guys would deliberately shoot any hat that happened to blow downrange during a live stage. Nobody said a word about my street clothes or my Rocky Wellies. When the whole thing was over, guns were cleared & stored, everyone broke down stage props & steel and stowed it all in the big shipping container near the classroom. I was then held captive for the potluck lunch where folks started giving me everything from business cards, catalogs, and copies of load data to bandanas, coupons, a DVD or two and even a "won-but-not-needed" $50 gift card for Cabela's (whose catalog had a lot of "period" western wear aimed at the CAS community at the time). I wrote a check to join SASS early that morning, but I'm pretty sure someone spotted me for the match fee since I was told not to worry about it while I was being ushered into a camper to be fitted & kitted with someone else's investments for the day.
I stayed with it for a little over a year until Uncle Sam invited me to relocate to another exotic new locale; since then, I've liquidated all of the gear I'd bought since I've moved on to other pastimes as well as other places - and life & fatherhood have handed me new priorities as well. I'm not interested in returning to CAS, mainly because I'd hate to have my memory of it all ruined by a repeat exposure that might fall too far short of my first run where the People Factor is concerned. But Man, Dang and Wow, was that ever a fine way to be welcomed into a new sport! And I sincerely hope that if I get involved in any organized discipline again one day, I find myself on the kind of Welcome Committee I enjoyed in CAS, and not the sort described in other accounts on this thread.
(And Yes, I placed dead last that day - with plenty of procedural penalties added to my snail-paced stage times - but no safety violations, thanks to the mentor over my shoulder who just wouldn't let that happen!)
