We visited Kevin’s maternal grandparents, Jack and Catherine Dietz, in North Dakota for a couple of weeks.  Jack and Catherine lived on a farm which was a long way from town or any other farms.  All the men and boys were shooting at targets and cans one afternoon and Kevin was having his first experience with something more powerful than a BB Gun.  As usual, Kevin showed his natural ability – he was an excellent shot with the 22-caliber rifle he was shooting. 

There was a lull in the shooting and we were standing around talking. About 25 yards out, a gopher popped his head out of his hole and stood up.  Kevin’s Uncle Bob hollered: “Get that gopher Kevin!”  Kevin threw the rifle up to his shoulder and fired off a quick round hitting the gopher dead center.  The wound was a gut shot and not immediately fatal.  The gopher was flopping around in its death throes and Bob drew his .44 magnum to finish the job as he walked closer.  Kevin walked with him to see what was going to happen.  Bob walked right up to the gopher and fired a single round from point blank range and blew the poor gopher apart.

Kevin was extremely upset by all this.  He gathered up all the gopher parts he could find and carefully put them into an old cigar box his grandma found.  He then dug a grave and with great ceremony buried the cigar box.  He marked the grave with a cross he fashioned out of two pieces of wood.  For the next couple of days, he spent a lot of time sitting by the grave.  He said he felt like a murderer.  We all tried to console him, but it seemed to offer him little comfort.  It was more than a week before he came out of his depression.