Today at Cabela's

I like Cabela's. I really do. I'm an avid fisherwoman and in the spring, I can spend a whole lot of time among the rods, reels and lures and spend even more cash before leaving. (I have found it averages out to about $1.32 per minute spent looking around.)

But boy oh boy, in the fall, Cabela's becomes a serious monument to testosterone. You can start to feel it while you're still on the highway. It is tribal in nature with so many hunters coming together in one spot. It's not for the faint of heart,that's for sure.

It would be fair, at this point, to wonder what, if I knew I would feel so out of place, could possibly make me go over there at this time of year?

On Friday, at the very end of a morning drive time radio show, the talk jock as he was signing off made mention of a Firearm exhibit at the Cabela's in Rogers Minnesota. This exhibit, presented by the NRA, he said, was going to feature various firearms that had been used in movies and old westerns and if any of us old movie nuts wanted to see them we'd better get into Cabela's by closing time on Sunday.

'Color me in', I said to myself and planned a nice little outing with the hunter in my house, who I knew would not turn down a chance to go to Cabela's.

After parking the car, I received another sign from the hunting Gods to remind me, just in case I had forgotten, that I was entering serious male territory. When I got out of the car, this is the first thing I saw:




Alright then. I made some crack to myself about how if the shell fits... and we went inside.

My husband took off to look at gear and I went searching for the gun exhibit.

After a few minutes, I come across young man sitting in front of a table and I asked him if he knew where the gun exhibit was with the guns from the westerns.

He looks at me with that 'lady I've been putting up with you old movie aficionados all day' look but smiles and says "right behind me".

I look behind him and while my mind is seriously yammering along thinking 'WOW!!! Seriously?' and some other choice things, I quickly put the brakes on and the words that I forced out of my mouth were "Would you mind if I take some pictures? I was a huge Chuck Conners/ Rifleman fan when I was a kid! This is great!"

The young man (who, by the way, was one of the finest representatives of the NRA I have ever met face to face) stood up and pushed the table out away from the exhibit to 'give me room' (and that still wasn't enough because of all the merchandise everywhere), to get a picture of the whole thing, but I got most of it and would like to share it with you:

That was it. Four rifles and 2 pistols.

I'm wondering if Patrick Reusse from AM1500 was as disappointed as I was.

Sigh.