Interesting People on the Fringe: This Week - The Big Shooter!

This week's Interesting Person on the Fringe is The Big Shooter, Jon Von Feldt, whom I met as a then-member of Adelante Fraternity in Ames, Iowa. Jon hailed from Webster City, Iowa, and he was brought into the fold by a couple of other Webster Citians, Shel Jones and Tom Esk. I had the pleasure of rooming with Jon over the summer of 1987 in what was known as Immaculate Village.

Jon was one of the best straight men I knew. He excelled at what we called "joshing", that is, saying something to someone with a straight face while knowing all the time that what you are telling him is pure bullshit. I don't know how many times he messed with our friend and correspondent, Loren Christensen, by telling him something along the lines of the following:

"Loren, there were two guys in suits here looking for you."

"Who were they?"

"I don't know exactly, but their car had government plates."

"Really?"

"Yeah, our guess would be that they were somekind of undercover cops."

"Really? Did they say what they wanted?"

"No, but they said they would come back tomorrow."

Loren's face turned pale as his mind raced as to what reason they would be interested in him. Pot? Alcohol? Girl problems? A definite buzzkill. Then, of course, Jon would say, "Just joshing!", and the mood would lighten considerably.

Jon went by the alias, Big Shooter, as he was the epitome of the American hunting class. If it could be tracked down, shot, killed and stuffed and/or eaten, he was in. He was certified by the God Bureau as a Master of the Hunt...auf Deutsch -- Jägermeister! I remember his steadfastness regarding a tree stand he had set up for hunting deer. Jon had set up his class schedule that fall semester to allow him the freedom to get up before the crack of dawn, drive north of Ames to his tree stand and sit there motionless for hours awaiting a prize buck with his bow. Days passed. No buck. No doe, either. Weeks passed. Still nothing. Then, one morning, not to far from the close of the Iowa bow season, Jon burst in with a HUGE shit-eating grin from ear to ear. He had nailed his buck, which we all appreciatively appraised in the back of his pickup truck. The Big Shooter had shot and killed again. Once, Jon showed us the results of an archery feat which would have made Robin Hood proud: he had, in a bullseye shot directly after the first, nailed the first, melding the two aluminum-shafted arrows inseparably together. Wow! I had the pleasure of doing a bit of trapping with the Big Shooter one weekend back home in Exira. We caught a couple of raccoons and muskrats, but we were unable to nail a beaver with a 330 Conabear set. Later, after college, Jon tried briefly to pursue a dream of being a big game guide in the West by attending a school in Montana or someplace like that. But then he learned the difference between a job and a hobby, as he found out that the market was oversaturated with game guides, and that he would be better off working in agribusiness back home.

Jon also went by the moniker of Opie, as 1) his red-headed, freckled visage resembled Ron Howard on The Andy Griffith Show, 2) his happy-go-lucky, "aw shucks" personality fit the bill and 3) he was a big fan of that TV classic. He and my roommate, Guy, then known as T, christened as Scott, used to sit up late nights and watch such programming, including that classic cornball comedy, The Beverly Hillbillies. Everyone got a kick out of Will Sigsbee when he burst into the room and said, "Chair!", in a commanding, princely voice, meaning that whoever was sitting on his throne must vacate it for his royal highness. Unbelievable, but true. Such are the lessons afforded those in college as you learn to live with others.

I only saw Jon, normally a very calm and collected dude, freak out twice. Once was when I blasted him in the face with a Class C fire extinguisher. Somehow I had thought (wrongly!) that it was only a dry ice deal, not a nasty chemical explosion. Thankfully, his eyesight remained unhindered! The other time was when Jon, sleeping off the after-effects of a Friday afternoon, Memorial Union terrace party, flipped out after Shel Jones set a running, upright vacuum cleaner on his head. Jon screamed like a banshee, reminiscent of a Nordic Berserker warrior, and proceeded to slam the vacuum cleaner into the floor repeatedly, as it continued running, at least for the first two slams, and he continued howling like a man possessed. After about a minute of flipping out, the vacuum destroyed into tiny pieces, Jon joined the normal world once more.

Jon was a business student, but studying never came that easily to him. He had a knack for the business world, however, as is evident by a successful business that he and his partner, Dennis Rebuhn, started in Ames while still students in the late 1980's. They were among the first to bring paintball to ISU, and I remember playing one Saturday with our fraternity, Adelante, against another house, I think it was Delta Chi, in the fall of 1988 in a timber north of Ames. We naturally kicked ass, with the Big Shooter on our side, 3 games to 1.

The last time I saw Jon in person was at Kevin Brocker's bachelor party at Lance Miller's house in Des Moines in 1994. I kept in contact with Jon during my time overseas with letters, but then, as is often the case, the contact faded. The last I heard he had married a girl named Nancy and was working for Monsanto out of St. Charles, Iowa.

To the Big Shooter, wherever you are...Waidmanns Heil!