This Sig Byrd column was originally published on March 28, 1957.

A couple of hours past midnight on a recent rainy night I took a moment from my overnight nursing duties in pediatrics at St. Joe’s and hopped across the street for coffee. Pierce Avenue was empty of traffic. The lilac fluorescents shone brightly and lonely on the glistening asphalt, and somehow I thought of Elmo Tucker.

It was on a rainy twilight several years back that I literally bumped into Elmo Tucker on the northeast corner of Texas and Travis. We bumped so hard that I almost upset the old man, and then I saw that he was blind.

He had been tapping his way to the curb with a red-and-white striped walking stick dressed in a heavy black raincoat and a rain-soaked felt hat. His eyelids were closed over caved-in sockets.

I apologized for knocking him down, and he smiled.

“That’s all right,” he said. “But if you feel bad about it maybe you could help me get to that shooting gallery down on Travis.”

I told him he had been headed the wrong way, took his slickered arm and steered him right. He plodded along beside me, smiling, not tapping his stick now.

The shooting gallery isn’t there any more. It was a little hole in the wall where you could stand under an awning and plink away with a .22 rifle at assorted targets about 40 feet away.

When we got there, the blind man thanked me profusely, told me his name and shook my hand. Then to my amazement, he hung his stick on the counter and asked for a loaded rifle.

Showing some concern I watched the boy who was running the place hand the old man a rifle and stand aside. “Don’t worry,” he told me. “Mr. Tucker can shoot straighter than some folks that can see.”

“That’s the truth.” The blind man smiled, cocked the gun and laid the stock against his hip. “Some folks think just because a man can’t see that he ought not to enjoy shooting a rifle. But I got a marksman’s medal in World War I. And before that I was the best squirrel hunter in East Texas. Hardly ever missed.”

He fired from the hip at a row of target cards pinned onto the side of a sandbox.

“You’re low and left, Mr. Tucker,” said the boy.

The old man fired again.

“On center,” said the boy. “But five inches low.”

The third shot hit the edge of the card, and the fourth struck almost dead center.

“Bulls-eye Mr. Tucker,” exclaimed the boy.

“What did I tell you?” Elmo Tucker said happily, “Am I a marksman, mister?”

“You’re a sharpshooter sir,” I admitted.