Camouflage is the evening wear of choice at Pine Level's social event of the season. Shotguns are THE accessory.

A blond teenage girl walks through the crowd, catching the eyes of teenage boys who are leaning on their guns, trying hard to act like older men. None dare approach. They might be shy, or maybe it is the sight of her gun-toting father walking beside her.

November is turkey shoot time in Johnston County, an area where kids grow up learning to hunt, shoot and handle a gun safely. The fundraising events spring up in old tobacco fields and behind churches and volunteer fire departments in just about every small town and crossroads. Many a firetruck and church hymnal has been paid for with proceeds from years of turkey shoots.

Some are just a few lights strung between two poles and a hay bale or two. Others, like the VFW shoot on the ball field in Pine Level, are more elaborate, run with machinelike precision under the bright lights.

By the way, they don't shoot turkeys. The targets are pieces of paper, decorated with a circle or crosshairs. Closest shot pellet to the center of the target wins a turkey or country ham. Given the spread of a few pellets of birdshot, it's pretty much luck ... unless you win, then it's ALL skill.

Old, plain guns often beat new, fancy ones. That little boy wearing a Spider-Man jacket, proudly carrying his shotgun slung over his shoulder, might beat the pants off the old veteran.

Fathers steady the wobbly barrels of sons and daughters taking their first shots. Young faces scrunch up, dreading the noise and the kick. Booms punch the air, and both father and child beam proudly. Shooters crowd around long boards of peppered targets. A father shouts, "Mama done whupped us all!" as his wife proudly holds up her target, a small hole dead center.

The young blonde takes her shot and joins the crowd a few minutes later to view the targets. She walks away a winner, frozen turkey in hand. Not bad for her first turkey shoot. Maybe those teenage boys ought to worry more about her than about her father.