As you can see from my signature line, I think about fat tom (Bobby Thomas) and crsides (Charlie Sides) every time I post on this forum. While I have many forum friends here, these two guys were real friends in my life. I talked with both of them often through PM’s here, on the phone, and even in person. I consider both of them to be mentors of mine! They were both extremely knowledgeable on all things S&W and vintage holster related. They were HUGE contributors to this forum, and helped me add to my gun and holster collections. I visited Bobby at his home on a few occasions, and boy was it fun to look through his safe with him! Before Charlie’s untimely passing, he would often come to Greenville and set up a table for the local gun shows. He would call me before coming to make sure I would meet him there. I would show up and sit with him and his gun show partner behind their tables for hours. Invariably, he would bring one of his recently acquired gems to show off to me, and he had some good’uns! I miss both of these guys!
Another person that I was thinking about a while back was gunlovinggirl. She was a big contributor on the forum when I first joined, but suddenly stopped. I believe she lived in Tennessee. IIRC, a few folks tried to get in contact with her back then without any luck. Hopefully, she just got busy with other things, and is living a great life! I enjoyed her posts a lot!
Post a few words in honor of some of your most remembered forum posters. I remember& always looked forward to posts from BigWheelZip ! She posted many interesting pictures of her travels and of her family from the late '40s in New York.
bigwheelzip (Mary) actually lived in my city, and unfortunately, we never met in person. We PM’d often and even talked on the phone a few times. She was quite a lady!
Absolom, Kurusu, and Old Joe Clark(Leon), are 3 that leap to mind.
We as a group are poorer by their passing.
Absalom (Burkhard Gebauer) was born in Germany and was a high school German language teacher that took many of his students to Germany for an exchange program. He actually passed away in his sleep, while visiting his mother in Germany for her Birthday. Mr. Gebauer was a very knowledgeable man on many subjects. He helped me on a few occasions here with S&W stuff, but helped me even more on the Walther Forum answering all sorts of questions about Walthers, and what group used which guns, etc.
Saxon Pig was a trip. I believe he would’ve even described himself as a curmudgeon! I may be wrong, but I believe he was a teacher too. He would get quite upset if you referred to him as just “Pig”, and didn’t hesitate to dress you down for doing it! He also would definitely let everyone know that Target grips didn’t EVER belong on a short barreled revolver! He was in a class that very few probably ever belonged to. IIRC, he was banned from the forum, but allowed to come back later, after being forgiven by the powers that be. I think he originally came back under a new handle, but might have been able to resume his old one (Saxon Pig). I’m not sure about that last part.
