By BHA Development Associate, Grant Alban   I was twelve, almost thirteen years old and it was Christmas time.  Having learned long ago that Santa wasn’t real, I passed the stage of wanting a million presents under the tree on Christmas morning.  Now I only wanted one really cool gift, and in my case, that was a gun.  As I grew up, my parents always seemed a little miffed at how their only son,   who lived in the suburbs of Southern California, could be so into guns and hunting.  Sure, my ...

By BHA Development Associate, Grant Alban   Monday through Friday, the bus dropped me off at the bottom of my street in the suburbs of Southern California.  I’d shuffle home, throw down my backpack and head straight to the kitchen to cook up a couple packets of Ramen.  Once I had eaten those, I’d head to the garage, grab my Daisy Powerline 880 BB/Pellet gun and jog past the two houses that separated my house from what seemed like endless wilderness (but what was actually only about 500 acres ...

By BHA Development Associate, Grant Alban   With an elk and an antelope in my freezer, the sun began to set on my hunting season. The last two days I did give in to a mildly frantic desperation that had me trying to fill my deer tag – but alas, nothing. Back in my garage that Sunday night, I emptied my hunting pack with some relief. Hunting was over for the year. The thing that I had looked forward to for so long had come and gone – but with it came sleeping in, fewer stops at the gas ...