Seventeen!

Last night Clider and I went to the D.U. benefit dinner at the Wallace Elks lodge here in the Silver Valley.  It’s been a while since Ducks Unlimited has had a chapter in the valley and we wanted to go and represent the H7HT well.  Tickets were $35 for the event and prime rib dinner and there are always many prizes to win.  Long time readers will remember that I won a hunting rifle at the last D.U. dinner I attended in CdA years ago.  We hoped to bring some of that magic with us.  Going into the Elks Club was like stepping back in time and the upstairs was filled with guns and merchandise to win and lots of people.  Clider commented that people in the valley do benefits well, and he is right.  Fundraisers of all kinds, whether for organizations like D.U., the NRA, scholarships or for individuals in need,  are well attended.  I guess there were about 150+ people there and everyone was ready to spend. 

We both bought the $100 booklet of tickets and started in on the raffle prizes.  I was smitten with a cedar clad mailbox and bid heavily on that.  Clider, in addition to spreading his tickets around,  went after only the goose floaters.  He claims to have enough decoys already.  I bid into lots of different decoys and other items but had my eye on that mailbox.  Surely nobody else was interested and if I put enough tickets in I would win.  Rocky the miner was there too and Clider and he chatted as Rocky mindlessly tossed tickets into the mailbox raffle, no doubt trying to steal my prize.  We both had 3 gold tickets for a special raffle and I went for 3 different guns, Clider went for two guns and a layout blind.   

Other money raffles were the $20’ goose band’ for a beautiful D.U. edition Benelli autoloader with gold inlay, the $20 ‘shot game’ for another gun and the $10 ‘envelope game’ where everyone wins a prize.  We were all in.

After a long line for dinner of prime rib, overcooked beans, mashers and puffy rolls we were ready to claim our prizes.  The live auction was first and I tried my best to convince Clider that he needed every item that came up for bids to no avail.  The first gun went to a non-H7HT member sitting next to us and raffle prizes started flying off the shelves.  A twinge of remorse came as I watched some nice flocked greenies, that would have looked great in our spread, go to someone else.  The first big money raffle was the ‘shot raffle’ and Clider was in.  The announcer mentioned the gun name followed by the number 17.  The very same number as on the bottom of his shot glass, winner!  Microseconds after saying the number 17, and as Cliders hand was going up in victory, announcer man follows with the caliber.  Seems the 17 was the model number, not the winner.  And so it went for the next hour or so.  The H7HT sat by and watched as other people walked off with our stuff.  Rocky the miner won the layout blind and a fine thermos and we were happy for him.  A guy sitting at the table behind us got my mailbox.  We’re pretty sure from his reaction that it went straight to the pile of stuff in the back of his shed. My old boss at DSM won a BB gun and Kids bow hunting kit for his daughters and a big spender from up north won tons of goods and services.  The time finally came for the ‘goose band’ raffle.  I prayed out loud to Heston for us both.   The beautiful Benelli went to an old man near the front and all the other prizes had found good homes too.

The very last game was the ‘envelope game’ where everyone wins a prize.  Clider got a Cabellas coupon and a duck call.  I got a cabellas coupon and a baseball card.  On the drive home we figured that the event raised many thousands of dollars (Thirty? Forty?) for the ducks, and wasn’t that the reason we were there in the first place?  The H7HT doesn’t need to win all the time like we do in the duck blind, we just need to be there to help the ducks and D.U. with our hard earned dollars.  As a consolation prize Clider loudly blew his new duck call for the entire ride home.  Sweet! 

When I got to work this morning I looked up my baseball card on the interweb as a joke.  It’s a 1959 Bazooka Billy Pierce card, he played for the White Sox and was a hall of famer in 59’.  The first hit was from Ebay and I clicked on it.  Identical card to mine in a plastic case selling for $1,200.  Winner!  Then I looked around more and realized it’s worth from $6 to $20 in mint condition, the one on Ebay must be a misinformed joke.  I can still hear Cliders duck call ringing in my ear.

GBCH