TUSCOLA - John "Chief A.J." Huffer sticks out on a residential street the way a bull gets noticed in a china shop.

Sitting on his Victorian front porch in Tuscola the other day, he wore a sleeveless American Indian ribbon shirt while his muscular arms used a speed-loader to fill a .22 magazine clip. Huffer's got a delicate touch, though, and the only things he usually breaks are records - he holds one for shooting more than 40,000 2½-inch-square pine blocks tossed into the air over eight, 14-hour days; he never missed a one.

He tends to shoot from the hip verbally, too. The son of a Cherokee father and a Menominee mother, he says interest in the Indian culture is big because our debt-choked society has grown sick of the world its credit has wrought. "You've got your house payment and your car payment and furniture payment and your washer-dryer payment and so on," explains Huffer, 70.

"Television, radio and newspaper ads all push this materialistic society, and where does it get you? Deep in debt and spending all your time worrying about money. But Native American society is about seeking spiritual things, and I think other people are becoming envious of the in-touch life: a life spent in touch with the Creator."

Huffer's seen his share of the material world, however. Born on a reservation in Wisconsin, he says he was adopted into a white Protestant family as a baby under a 1930s program that sought to "civilize the savage" and grew up middle class. But the call of the wild remained with visits from Indian aunts and uncles reminding him of his heritage.

Along the way, there was duty in the Marine Corps, which honed his shooting skills, a war tour in Korea and various civilian careers that even included running an American Indian construction company. He met wife Corinne at the University of Illinois (where he went on a football scholarship) while serving as a close-to-naked model for her art class.

"Life with him has always been pretty exciting," says Corinne, 70. "You just never know which way we're going to travel or where the wind will blow us."

Her husband has still got those artsy curves - he won the Grand Master Mr. Illinois bodybuilding title in May, the oldest man to do so - and keeps plenty of other irons in the crackling fire of his boundless energy. Huffer's been a chief in the Central Illinois Tribal Council since 1980 and has written a recently published and timely thriller centered on ancient Indian prophecy that predicts a catastrophic American flood.

"Had me a book signing at Barnes & Noble in Champaign," says Huffer, who turned up in full Indian dress to autograph copies of "Tsunami Twins." He smiles at the memory. "It's fun to sit there and make people think you're all literary."

His biggest passion remains guns and shooting, and he travels the country giving exhibitions while teaching gun safety to kids. One of his greatest triumphs was persuading Daisy to introduce a line of BB guns built to his specifications (he likes to practice with them) and emblazoned with his name on the stock. The Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Wyoming recently honored Huffer by including one of these "Chief A.J. Special Edition" models in its display of shooting memorabilia.

"I'm real proud of that," he said.

If our rampant material culture hasn't consumed all your earthly wealth, you can lock and load your very own Chief A.J. Daisy by sending $79.95 to: Chief A.J., Box 131, Tuscola, IL 61953-0131 or call 253-2959. He takes plastic.

Tony Reid can be reached at treid@;herald-review.com or 421-7977.