<TITLE>05. Par 20-23</TITLE>L-20 And so, I was going... My recreation is to fish and to hunt. And I'm glad of that. When I get home... And calls, people setting in there from everywhere, waiting for months, and they're under pressure too, and trying to find out what the Lord would have them to do, and what--in their lives... And we stay there until God speaks down from heaven and reveals it to them. And that builds pressure too, with the people.
Then when I get tense, I go down... I belong to some clubs to go down and shoot targets. And I've always wanted a Weatherby Magnum rifle. But I... Oh, some of my friends would've bought it for me (They're very expensive.), but I--I couldn't let them do it. I couldn't see myself letting a friend of mine pay that much for a rifle when I know missionaries is preaching without shoes on their feet. So I--I--I couldn't do that.

L-21 Brother Art Wilson gave my son a little rifle here some time ago. And he didn't know he was left-handed, and there's a right-hand bolt on it. Another friend of mine that runs a Weatherby outlet place, he said, "Let me take that and send it to Weatherby and have it rebored for you, and I'll make you a Weatherby Magnum out of it." Said, "If you do it, cost you thirty dollars." Said, "I can do it for about twelve dollars, and let me--let me do it."
Well, finally, I agreed. He was just a Methodist brother, just received the Holy Ghost. And--and I--I told him, "Go ahead," he wanted to do it so bad. I took it down on the range and placed a shell in it, and raised up to shoot. And I seen fire just about five feet over my head, and that's about all I knew for a second or two. I thought I was dead. And one glorious thing, I had the most peaceful feeling that I--I believe that if I had to die, I don't think I'd be afraid of it.

L-22 And so, I couldn't see, hear, nor nothing. And it blowed the gun so completely apart, till the barrel went on the fifty-yard line this way, and the stock and things went fifty yards behind me, and the pieces of the gun tore the bark off the tree, and melted in my hand, what was left. And I could hear something; squirting like, sounded like... Get myself together, and I was trying to hold my eyes open to see what had taken place.
And a piece had shot me right into the forehead. One went around my eye this way and down that way, and one in the cheekbone, one stuck way into the skull. This one hit on this side of the eye, and this one went into the bone, and this one went through and knocked that tooth off there. And so I was having quite a time to see.

L-23 The man was with me, he was walking out to see where the target was hit. I couldn't hear him, and couldn't speak to him. And I was holding this eye open with my hand, trying to motion to him. Finally he come up there. And Brother Wood, he was so excited he couldn't even get the car started. So we... Finally the--I went and got it washed out, and some pieces they picked out of my skull. And I looked at them big pieces, drove inch and a half, or two inches in a tree.
Now, the Winchester Company proves that their gun will stand sixty-nine hundred pounds of pressure. And this that'd been about four tons. So you see, there must've been six or eight tons blowed within one inch of my eye. That, if that would burst the gun, it could just simply just been that much of me left down there. So what was the matter? The way, them that bored the gun out left too much headspace on it. Instead of the gun blowing forward, it blowed backwards. So it--it went into my face and blowed that bolt, which weighs about a pound and a half (oh, my.), plumb down to a deer cage setting way behind me at the Conservation Club.


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