Revealing Character Essay Contest
Adult first place winner essay

Straight Shooter
by Fred Afflerbach, Cedar Park, TX

My grandmother was a straight shooter.  She won the 1942 International Pistol Championship in Juarez, Mexico.   But she taught me an important lesson about character, not with her .22-caliber Colt Woodsman, but through point-blank conversation.

I was about 13, and had agreed to deliver several hundred fliers to area neighborhoods.  Sitting at the kitchen table, with my mother and grandmother engaged in conversation, I stuffed the fliers into the plastic sleeves.  But I soon realized they were too light to throw from my bike, and I would have to hand carry them to the porches.  At the rate of a few pennies per flier, this was not a good deal.  

So I crammed several fliers into each baggie.  I could then throw them like newspapers.  More fliers per baggie also meant I could finish faster.  Maybe some residents wouldn't get their grocery ad, but that didn't bother me.  I just wanted to get the job done.   

That night Granny knocked on my bedroom door.  She looked me in the eye, and told me she knew what I was doing.  She said it was wrong.  She said I should honor my agreement, regardless.  Then she said she wasn't going to tell my parents.   

After school the next day, I took the extra fliers out of the baggies, placed them in their own baggie, and delivered them.  

Through a small incident, my grandmother taught me a large lesson about character.  Character is doing what is right, even if no one is watching, even if no one will ever  know.

My grandmother, Elizabeth Gaither Witte, died this March.  She was 97.  

And yes, she was a straight shooter.  She left a host of ribbons and medals she won as  a 1940s member of the El Paso Pistol Club to prove it.  But what I remember most: the time she shot straight with me. 

Click here to read the other finalists essays. (pdf download)

Click here to read the winning youth entry.

For more information about the exhibit, click here.