thedailychannel.com — adventure
It was an odd place to hear a piper as I later commented to one of the professors from Scotland's Royal Academy of Music. Here is what she said: "The Irish have pipes too, but that was Simon you heard. He's one of ours. And he's not small, he's quite large."
Later I had a chance to hear Simon tuning two of his six sets of Scottish bagpipes in a small lecture hall, which was quite audible, not too surprising considering it had been quite audible at the distance of about a mile away. "I have some good news and some bad news," he said. "The good news is I have 2 sets of bagpipes. Unfortunately I have only one set of earplugs." Yes, pipers actually say that kind of thing.
His lecture was quite interesting, but I digress.
It was walking back from the concert along this road that my son was shot, near his right eye, with an air powered pellet-gun, by a young Irish boy lying in wait. Joe cried out and grabbed his face and fell to the ground crying; I thought at first he had been stung but then looking around saw a flash of red shirt from the trees as the boy fled.
Then I remembered the two popping sounds and immediately knowing what had happened shouted in anger. I don't even remember what I said but I think it was "I SAW THAT!" He had been hiding, lying in wait, behind some bushes on the right , with a thought-out escape route between wire fences and over concrete walls that we had no hope of following.
The pellet-gun bullet had struck Joe's eyeglass frame about a centimeter behind his right eye, and in spite of striking the frame had still raised a small red welt. It just goes to show you there's no such thing as a toy gun, as there is no question in my mind it could have cost Joe his vision in his right eye.
The distance from shooter to target was no more than 20 feet, so it seems an inescapable conclusion that his intention was to hit my boy in the eye.
We walked all over the subdivision of private houses which was occupied by a few people watching TV indoors but there was almost no foot traffic.
I hoped to find the boy and drag him off to his father to get a talking to, or at least I hoped that was all. In the event, with no success and darkness near, it being after 9:30 on a summer Irish Sunday (July 8, 2001), we decided to head back to the hotel -- (the Kilmurray Inn -- a fine place if you don't plan any ventures on foot nearby) -- and call the police, or Garda as they are called, to report the event.
The manager hustled us off into his office and dialled the number for us which rang infinitely and then went busy. A second trial yielded a 'this number has been changed' message -- not what you really expect from the police, but the referral number got us through to the Garda.
Upon finding Joe had been shot near the eye, after asking the same question as the hotel manager "does he require medical attention," they took it quite seriously and came out to see us. They took me up on my offer to show them the scene of the crime, and we headed for their unmarked car.
We went back to the scene, they parked, just stopped in the road, and hopped out. Of course being Ireland it was the left side of the road, for what good reason God only knows.
I showed them the back yard and they went up and knocked on the door. There was a faint "who's there" and the Garda guy just grunted. "who's there" again, and he said "they're hiding the gun." Finally he opened up and let us in. Was a badge shown? I totally missed the whole entry exchange. Is this normal, that police can come to your back door? I guess so.
I was glad when we
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