I've spent over 2 months in Mexico up until tonight. Retirement is now only 8 months away and getting back here and building on our property is something I'm really looking forward to. I still have a job to get back to in Canada but I've had quite a few things I had to attend to here as well. Getting lots of things started on the property where we want to build took up some of the time, in fact, but there were other concerns as well.

I am not in San Miguel any longer. We'll be nicely rural and just outside of Guanajuato, Guanajuato when we move back. My wife was telling me just the other day that she was reading an article about how Stirling Dickinson -- a "patron" of San Miguel -- would probably not like what San Miguel has become since it became a famous ex-pat destination. "Well," I told her, looking up from my Kindle, "neither would have Phil Maher or Phil Roettinger either."

However, I was in San Miguel for a while and visited Phil's gun to make sure it's safe, clean and waiting for us to return and take it home again. I took this photograph of the 4 guns I have in the safe that are coming back with me when we move over to Guanajuato. Two Model 28's registered and marked as Model 23's, my Heavy Duty and Phil's NRM. ****** photo but it's what I had for a camera.


I used my host's camera to take a series of photos of Phil's out on the BBQ shelf. His is a nice camera.


Anyway, I'm in Salamanca now and it's a whole different story. Salamanca is one of Guanajuato's more violent cities, being an oil town and the center of the fight between two rival cartels. A beautiful city all the same -- at least, I like it -- but I have been here 3 weeks now and have not seen another ex-pat.

Yesterday I picked up a new Kindle book written in 1961 or 62 by Jeff Cooper. I'm a big Cooper fan and had not read this one, which is entitled "Handguns Afield".


I certainly couldn't resist it, and reading through it I found quite a bit of it was just copied verbatum when he subsequently wrote "Cooper on Handguns". This evening, I was in the chapters where he is talking about hunting handguns and their power -- most specifically the .357 and .44 Magnums -- and I was reading along nicely right here on this page....


...which is all pretty standard Cooper fare from the day, and turning the page to my shock this popped up:


...and it sort of floored me. I showed my wife immediately. Of course, she knows all about Phil's gun, she's shot it in the past, and she was quite surprised as well.

I had asked Phil once if he had known Cooper, and Phil said he didn't think so but "maybe". They had both been Marines, they had both been on Guadalcanal at the same time....so "maybe". Either way, it certainly appears that Cooper knew who Phil was.

The story about the Turkey shoot. If I was ever told it, I have forgotten it. Maybe it was in Lee Echol's book -- which is in my old loading room over in San Miguel (I saw it while I was there but did not flip through it), also awaiting my return -- but I don't remember. But it's a pretty straight-out reference from Cooper himself about both Phil and his gun. So perhaps their paths did cross at one time or another.