Please note that I was not advocating never keeping score; just that once in a while it’s ok not to. JMHO.

When I was a kid I was blessed to have a very wealthy gentleman who was a friend of my family, and a neighboring landowner. He planted for doves and raised and released quail way back in the early 60s. He would graciously invite me on his big dove shoots with all grown men. I'd be the only adolescent.

My Dad owned a huge country store which stocked and sold everything needed to live, including ammunition. He wanted to foster my shooting abilities and would give me shotgun shells for dove shoots. His only caveat was "Don't waste 'em." I took that to heart and would be constantly counting my doves taken in comparison to my shots taken. I'd return the unused shells to my Dad, who would always ask me how well I shot. I was always ready with an answer.

Probably boring information to most everyone but I do believe that instilled a competitive shooting nature in me, and made me a better shot. I am grateful to my Dad for his generosity to me . . . . we weren't affluent people.

I would've never made a good poker player, I guess. I couldn't have overcome the old adage "Never count your money when you're sitting' at the table" ("there'll be time enough for counting, when the dealin's done.").

I tell my girlfriend not to keep score. Lol

"Operator, I'd like to make a long distance station to station call to my grandmother in Bucklin, Kansas. The number is: 21". Then I'd hang up and wait for the call to be placed. When it was the phone would ring. I'd pick it up and my grandmother would say, "Hello". You could also place a person to person call, which was more expensive. In that case the operator would ask the party you were calling, if they wanted to accept a call from so and so, so the receiving party would know who was calling. The operator would ring you back and tell you that "Your party is waiting". Things have changed, huh. Telephones didn't aways work very well and sometimes people had to almost scream into the handset to be heard. Telephones came into general use in the late 1870s. So Billy the Kid probably did make a phone call. Whatt Earp to, but he died in 1929 and by then everyone had a phone. they were party lines, but they were common.

I used to shoot pasture clays with my two brothers-in-law and my father-in-law; they're all gone now. A cheap hand-cocked trap but we tried our best to simulate a shot at a bird; it would even throw doubles. Gun down, two shells in your gun, and there was always somebody backing you up if you missed with both. Those guys were some of the best wing shots I've ever seen; we'd congratulate the good shots and rub it in on the misses, but we never kept score.